


)^ H8 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



DDDDiaflH'^^S 




Qass. 



Book ,HI7 



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MR. HALL'S DISCOURSE 



BEFOIiE THE 



NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, 



CITY OF NEW YORK, 



I'KC. M. 1847. 



GEORGIC F. NESBITT, PUINTEB, 



1 ■-*• 

DISCOURSE 



DKLIVERED BEFORE 



THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, 



IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 



DECEMBER U2, 1847. 



^ 



J. PRESCOTT HALL. 



. Xtora^y of Co,, 



^ NEW-YORK: 

GEORGE F. NESBITT, PRINTER. 
1848. 



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CORRESPONDENCE. 



New-York, December 30, 1847. 

Sib, 

In behalf of the New England Society, in the City of New- 
York, and in pursuance of a resolution of its Board of Officers, we thank 
you for the appropriate, well-considered, and very learned and eloquent 
Address delivered by you, before the Society, at the Tabernacle, in this 
City, on occasion of the recent Anniversary of the Landing of the Pil- 
grims at Plymouth ; and earnestly request a copy for pubUcation. 
We are, very truly, 

Your friends and servants, 

THOMAS FESSENDEN, 

B. W. BONNEY, J Committee. 

S. DRAPER, JuN., 

To J. Prescott Hall, Esq. 



New York, December 31, 1847. 
Gentlemen, 

In compliance with the request contained in your very kind 
note of the 30th iust., I herewith furnish a copy of the Address therein 
referred to, for publication ; but with no hope or behef that it merits the 
commendation you have been pleased to bestow upon it. 

Deeply impressed with a sense of what I owe to the New England So- 
ciety for its flattering consideration, and to yourselves, as their Com- 
mittee, I am, Gentlemen, with very great respect. 
Your obedient servant, 

JONA. PRESCOTT HALL. 
To Messrs. 



Thomas Fessenden, ) 

B. W. BoNNEY, > Committee. 

S. Draper, Jun., Esqrs., ) 



1* 



DISCOURSE. 



To trace the rise and progress of communities ; to follow 
the fortunes and elucidate the character of those wFio have 
laid the foundation of new associations ; to preserve from 
decay the memory of illustrious men, who have transferred 
from one hemisphere to another, the arts of peace, the bless- 
ings of liberty, and the consolations of religion ; belong- 
perhaps, to the province of history, rather than to a 
brief address, upon a special occasion. And yet, we who 
are now assembled, may with strict propriety, and not 
without a sense of just pride, cast our eyes back upon the 
events of the last two centuries, while we contemplate the 
ancestry from which we are sprung, and the causes which 
have led to our being here, this day, to present our grateful 
offerings upon the altar of our national existence. 

" Difficilis est (says the learned Grotius,) rerum gesta- 
rum narratio : quae absentem, fugiunt ; presentem, trahunt." 
It is difficult to give a correct narrative of events ; they 
escape the observation of those who were not witnesses ; 
while those who were present, are drawn away by their 
force, or become parties in the scene. 

But the story of our origin, as a people, is not obscure. 
We are not compelled, like other nations, to trace back our 
race through rude ages of barbarism, to the dim uncer- 
tainty of tradition and fable. The foundations of society in 



New England and the origin of its Institutions, both civil 
and religious, may be correctly ascertained ; for their his- 
tory has been written and published to the whole world. 

In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, the Goddess of 
Wisdom is fabled to have sprung into existence from the 
head of Jupiter, completely armed and all perfect. In like 
manner, the first settlements of New England came into 
being, as communities, with all the attributes of organized 
society, and all the restraints of good government and sub- 
ordination. 

The day which we now celebrate, is a memorable one, 
in the annals of our country ; a day never to be forgotten or 
disregarded. If the fourth of July, 1776, was, in the esti- 
mation of the patriotic John Adams, a memorable epoch, to 
be commemorated as the day of deliverance, to be solem- 
nized with pomp, shows, bonfires and illuminations, from 
one end of the continent to the other, how much more is the 
22d of December, 1620, which marks the period when the 
national existence of New England began, to be held in re- 
membrance by us and our successors, " from that time for- 
ward forever !" 

We are here assembled. Gentlemen of the New England 
Society, to celebrate this great occasion. To say to those 
who have gone before us, if in the mysterious ties which 
bind the present and the past together, such communica. 
tions can be held, that we have not forgotten the days of 
their labor and sorrow ; that the history of their perilous 
fortunes has not been blotted out, nor that of their self-de- 
votion gone into oblivion ; that their children, grateful for 
the sacrifices which they endured, full of admiration at their 
example, proud of a descent from such illustrious progeni- 
tors, year by year assemble themselves together to com- 
memorate the great events of past centuries, that their fa- 
hers' names may not be forgotten or lost from among men. 



This Society, of which we are members, was not found- 
ed upon narrow, or sectional predilections. Having its be- 
ginning in wise and generous purposes, its chief object is, 
and ever has been, to cpnnect the natives of New England 
and their descendants with the early history of their coun- 
try ; that, by the considerations of a common ancestry, the 
emotions of a natural sympathy might be excited, and the 
bonds of union strengthened ; and thus, that the descend- 
ants of those, who braved the same dangers, to attain the 
same ends, might be led to kindly thoughts of one another ; 
and finally to kindly acts and benevolent associations. 

We do not arrogate to ourselves, or assert for ourselves, 
any superiority over the inhabitants of any other part of the 
country, either in the manner of our origin, or in our pro- 
gress towards maturity. Conceding to all sections of the 
Union a beginning equally as respectable, a progress 
equally honorable, and a present condition quite as pros- 
perous as our own, we, nevertheless, have a right, without 
offence to others, to consider our family relations, and as 
the children of common parents, to assemble ourselves to- 
gether, on an occasion like the present, and look back with 
grateful remembrance upon those who, through peril, hard- 
ship and privation, subdued the wilderness for our benefit 
and laid here the foundations of law, order and religion so 
broad and deep, that we may erect superstructures upon 
them, massive and high, without endangering the solid 
basis beneath. 

Look back upon the origin of the first settlements of New 
England, and tell me in what annals, other than our own, 
can you find the history of a people, who, surrounded at 
home by the comforts of social life ; suffering no intoler- 
able evils from the tyranny of government ; weighed down 
by no excessive burthens ; untempted by prospects of gain ; 
unswayed by the lust of conquest ; abandoned, neverthe- 



8 

less, all that home, kindred and country could offer, for the 
sole purpose of enjoying an unrestrained liberty of thinking 
and acting upon the great rights of conscience, free from 
the domination of ecclesiastical control. Look at them 
assembled upon the shores of their native, their beau- 
tiful Island, prepared to undergo all the hardship and 
perils of voluntary exile ! Whose cheek blanches ; whose 
eye grows dim as they look upon the waste of waters 
which shuts them out from the distant and unknown 
shores 1 Why should they leave this pleasant land ? Why 
should they desert their tranquil homes ? What dire neces- 
sity drives them forth ? It is not poverty goading the Irish- 
man to fairer scenes and more fruitful climes ; it is not 
the Pole, scourged forth by the iron whip of a military 
tyranny ; nor the blue-eyed German, escaping from the 
grinding exactions of a toilsome and hopeless, because un- 
rewarded labor. 

No, none of these motives impels or drives them forward: 
but they are drawn by an impulse more powerful than the 
love of home, or parents, or country. It is the still small 
voice of conscience, which tells them of a duty higher and 
purer and holier than all these ; and in obedience to its 
dictates, they must go forth to worship the God of their 
fathers in the wilderness. 

" It is not the least debt" (says Sir Walter Raleigh,) ''we 
owe unto history, that it hath made us acquainted with our 
dead ancestors, and delivered us their memory and fame. 
Besides, we gather out of it a policy no less wise than eter- 
nal, by the comparison and application of other men's fore- 
passed mercies with our own like errors and ill-deservings." 

The history of our ancestors is indeed of inestimable 
worth to their descendants ; though by it, our " ill-deserv- 
ings," may, perhaps, stand out in more prominent relief 
against their fore-past mercies. But their example remains 



for all time to come. Simple, unpretending, high-minded 
and pure of purpose, the Pilgrims of New England went 
forth for great objects, to be attempted at first by inconside- 
rable means. 

And who composed this devoted band, these Pilgrims in 
the desert 1 Were they an ignorant and fanatical sect, en- 
ticed from their homes by ambitious leaders, taking advan- 
tage of a newly-awakened religious enthusiasm, for the ac- 
complishment of their own selfish objects 1 or were they 
educated and well-informed men, of large experience, pru- 
dent, sagacious and wise ? 

The early settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut 
and New Haven, (for at the first, these Colonies were separate 
and independent jurisdictions,) numbered among their ranks 
many individuals eminent for their learning, and distin- 
guished by their personal condition. Mr. Carver, the first 
Governor of Plymouth, was a gentleman well known, and of 
elevated character, who originally had a good estate in 
England ; but being among the earliest emigrants to Ley- 
den and America, and one of their principal agents, he lib- 
erally used his fortune for the benefit of his associates ; set- 
ting a most illustrious example of patience, self-denial and 
generosity, through long years devoted to the good of others, 
and the advancement of that cause, for which he staked, 
and finally sacrificed, his life. William Bradford, a name 
never to be mentioned without honor by a descendant of the 
Pilgrims, although in some degree a self-taught scholar 
was nevertheless familiar with the Dutch and French lan- 
guages, and 'attained to a considerable intimacy with the 
Latin and Greek. But that he might " see the ancient ora- 
cles of God in their native beauty," he applied himself, 
in his leisure moments, to the study of Hebrew ; and 
though his whole life was much devoted to literary pur- 
suits ; although he inherited a good landed property 



10 

from his father, and was educated for the manly em- 
ployments of agriculture ; yet, in his early youth, hav- 
ing his mind deeply impressed with its responsibilities to a 
higher power, he passed over to Holland to join the little 
band of non-conformists who had chosen an asylum there 
against the ecclesiastical tyranny of King James. Mr. 
Cotton, one of the most learned men of his time, was edu- 
cated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was emi- 
nently distinguished for his scholastic attainments. He 
wrote Latin with elegance, was a critic in Greek, and so 
well skilled in the Hebrew tongue that he could discourse 
in that language. Brewster, the steadfast and devout elder, 
who, in the midst of want, if not absolute famine^ gave 
thanks to God that his family were permitted " to suck of 
the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the 
sand," also educated at the University of Cambridge, was 
at one time connected with the British Embassy in Holland. 
Higginson was a graduate from Emanuel College. Eaton 
and Hopkins had been eminent merchants in London. 
Mr. Davenport, a student of Oxford, and a minister of great 
fame at home, was also a distinguished scholar, eminent 
alike for learning and virtue. Edward Winslow, the brave 
man who offered himself as a hostage fo¥ his Colony in 
their first interview with the savage monarch of Mount 
Hope, possessed both fortune and information. In his 
travels on the Continent of Europe, becoming acquaint- 
ed with Mr. Robinson, he adopted his sentiments and 
finally joined the emigrants who came to Plymouth ; and 
after performing for them the most signal services, in the 
midst of great and boldly encountered dangers, he at last 
laid down his life for his country in that unfortunate expe- 
dition fitted out by Cromwell against the Spaniards in the 
West Indies. Mr. Hooker, a most eloquent divine, and 
one of the founders of the Colony of Connecticut, was edu- 



11 

cated at Cambridge in England. His command of lan- 
guage was so great, that, like Whitfield, he usually deliv- 
ered his discourses without reference to notes ; while his ex- 
pressive countenance and personal demeanor, added a ma- 
jesty to his presence, which commanded at once the respect 
and admiration of his hearers. Mr. Stone, at one time an 
associate with Mr. Hooker, and a graduate of the same 
University, was one of the most accurate logicians of his 
day, celebrated not only for acuteness, but also for wit, 
humor and pleasantry. And it may be here observed, that 
many of the learned persons whose names are now men- 
tioned, have left to their posterity most striking evidences 
of their attainments, in the various works for which they 
were, in their own times, particularly distinguished. Win- 
throp, a name prolific in illustrious men — a gentleman of 
education and bred to the law, inherited from his ances- 
tors an estate of six hundred pounds a year : an income, 
which would be accounted even in these less frugal days, 
quite competent to maintam the condition in which he was 
born. Eminent himself, he transmitted his name and fame, 
through two chief magistrates of Connecticut, son and 
grandson ; and finally, the same blood coming down to a 
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, flows, through him, 
in the veins of the distinguished representative from Boston, 
who now presides over the popular branch of the American 
Congress. In one word — not to swell the long catalogue — 
if we look at the whole body of the emigrants by the May- 
flower and Speedwell, the Arbella, the Ambrose, the Tal- 
bot and the Jewel, we can nowhere find names more emi- 
nent for prudence and forecast, or more remarkable for intel- 
ligence, enterprise and courage. If Lord Chatham, while 
speaking of the renowned Patriots of our Independence, 
could say, that he never had heard or read of any body of 
men superior to the Congress at Philadelphia, what may 



12 

we not say of those, who, on the bleak shores of New Eng- 
land, in the midst of the desolations of winter, surrounded 
by perils and want, could, nevertheless, so far subdue them- 
selves to the elements, and tlie elements to them, as not 
to venture forth from the dreary prison of their ship, until 
they had combined themselves together for their better 
order and preservation, by framing a general law for the good 
government of th« Colony. And this too in the most per- 
fect spirit of liberi}' and equality. 

In what other records of man's history do you find such 
evidences of just subordination, and solemn purpose ; such 
moral and such Christian elevation ? The very name by 
which they designated themselves is significant of their 
character, and marks at once their courage and humility. 
" And the time being come (says Governor Bradford,) that 
they must depart, they were accompanied to a town, sun- 
dry miles off, called Delft Haven, where the ship lay ready 
to receive them. So they left that goodly and pleasant City 
which had been their resting-place near twelve years. 
But they knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much 
on those things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their 
dearest country, and quieted their spirits !" 

What words of pathos and simplicity ! They knew they 
were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things ! Yes, 
they were indeed Pilgrims. Pilgrims bound on no ordinary 
journey, to lay the foundation of no ordinary society, 
to establish a name not soon to fade away ; for while ad- 
miration of purity and excellence shall endure, so long as 
respect for departed worth shall remain among their de- 
scendants, so long shall the name of " Pilgrim^^ be honored 
and revered. 

Among the many remarkable qualities with which Provi- 
dence, for its own wise ends, seems to have endued the 
character of our ancestors, I know of none more striking or 



13 

admirable than their love of order, and their submission 
to those just restraints whereby society is held together, 
property respected, personal security guarded, and public 
liberty preserved. 

From the very first, the necessity for such submission was 
apparent to their minds. Recollect, that before they left 
the ship which had conveyed them safely across the boister- 
ous waves of the Atlantic, borne up in the " hollow of that 
hand" which never ceased to support them, they projected, 
formed and signed, the first compact for liberal government, 
under equal laws, of which we have any record. 

No men ever understood betterthan they, the proper foun- 
dations of republican government, or the just principles by 
which alone true liberty and equality can be maintained. 
" The best part of a community," said Governor Winthrop, 
in a letter to the people of Connecticut, " is always the 
least ; and of that least, the wiser are still less." " There 
is," said he on another occasion, ''a liberty of corrupt 
nature, which is inconsistent with authority, impatient of 
restraint, the enemy of truth and peace, and all the ordi- 
nances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a 
moral, q. federal liberty, which consists in every one's en- 
joying his property and having the benefit of the laws of 
his country ; a liberty of that only which is just and good ; 
for THIS liberty^ you are to stand with your lives.'' 

Wise legislator of the old time, just, sagacious and true ! 
did your prophetic gaze pierce forward two centuries to our 
times, for this picture of democratic freedom 1 to view 
and describe a liberty of corrupt nature, inconsistent with 
authority, impatient of restraint, the enemy of truth and 
peace] If haply, you should have beheld such scenes in 
your vision, and turned your eyes from the prospect, dim 
and suffused with tears, look once again, and you shall yet 
behold the better portion of your descendants, << standing 



14 

with their lives," for that liberty, which is just and good, 
which gives to every one the enjoyment of his own pro- 
perty, and the benefit of the laws of his country. 

It should not be forgotten, perhaps, that when the project 
for the settlement of New England was first entertained the 
state of public sentiment in the land of our ancestors began 
to be favorable to the commencement of such an enterprise. 
It was at the close of the reign of James the First, when 
men's minds- were agitated by new views of their rights and 
privileges. The iron sway of the last Henry had been in 
some measure forgotten, while that of his stern and lion- 
hearted daughter had lost a large portion of its influence, 
during the weak and undignified, yet assuming adminis- 
tration of the learned, but contemptible, Scottish king. His 
subjects had at this period, begun to think for themselves. 
The reforms of Luther had spread their influence beyond 
the sea and over the land. The bigotry of Papal power 
was not able to subdue or keep down the awakened spirit 
of inquiry. A deep sense of religious obligation, in a large 
class of English thinkers, had taken the place of forms and 
masses, of indulgences and dispensations. The accounta- 
bility of man, as an individual, had become impressed upon 
the minds of the devout and reflecting. Although the time 
for the enjoyment of religious freedom in their own land 
had not yet come, yet the waves of public opinion had 
begun to move and heave in a manner which indicated that 
the great internal power which caused the agitation, could 
not long be pent up or restrained. When a true religious 
sentiment takes possession of the soul, it becomes superior 
to all other considerations. A sympathetic communication 
extends the feeling from mind to mind and from heart to 
heart. In the depth of its fervor all other objects are com- 
paratively forgotten. The strength of kings, the influence 
of forms, and the rewards of obedience to power, have lost 



15 

their influence. The soul becomes poised upon itself. Not 
dreading its obligation to men, while those of a paramount 
nature are before it, it cuts aloof from all worldly consider- 
ations, and " holds itself responsible only to its God." 

That this sentiment was the exciting cause of the first 
removal of our ancestors to Holland, and of their subsequent 
emigiation to New England, has been conceded by most 
historians who have written upon the subject, and may be 
assumed as the basis of all our speculations upon those ex- 
traordinary movements commeneed by the independent 
churches on the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed it has 
been supposed, and not unfrequently asserted, that the first 
settlers at Plymouth, went thither, for the exclusive purpose 
of enjoying their religious opinions and practices in their 
own way, unmolested by civil control, or ecclesiastical do- 
mination. That this was the^r^^ object of those who left 
England, and passed over to Holland, in 1608, is undoubt- 
edly true ; but that it was their only motive for leaving 
Holland, and coming to New England, cannot well be ; for 
from the moment when the reformation of Luther had 
taken permanent hold of the Low Countries, in the year 
1573 ; from that moment, the Dutch, with a wise policy, 
granted a free, absolute and uncontrolled liberty of con- 
science, to all religions and all sects ; so that the Non-Con- 
formist of England could there meet the Catholic of Spain, 
the Jew of Syria, and the Pagan of heathen lands, upon 
the equal platform of free toleration. So far, then, as lib- 
erty of conscience was concerned, there was no cause of 
complaint .in Holland. The free exercise of every man's 
religious opinions and practices, was thoroughly guarded ; 
and the church of Mr. Robinson might have remained safely 
in Lcyden, if their only desire had been to worship the God 
of their fathers, in their own mode, and according to the dic- 
tates of their own consciences. Indeed the liberality of 



16 

Dutch sentiment, in this behalf was such as to excite the 
ridicule of their neighbors, who intimated that their toler- 
ance was the effect, not of liberal principles acting upon 
religious subjects, but of an indifference towards religion 
itself, in all its forms and in every aspect. Amsterdam was 
denominated by Bishop Hall, a " common harbour of all 
opinions ;" others called it " a cage for unclean birds," to 
which " all strange religions flocked." And Beaumont 
and Fletcher introduce a pedant in one of their plays as 
saying : "I am a schoolmaster, sir, and would fain confer 
with you about erecting four new sects of religion at 
Amsterdam." 

What then were the causes which first moved the Pil- 
grims in Holland to cast their eyes towards the setting sun, 
with the design of establishing new institutions in an un- 
known country, remote, barbarous and wild 1 What feel- 
ings were those which swelled in the hearts of those consci- 
entious and brave men, to encounter hardship in all its 
forms, disease, famine and death, with their wives and 
children, among savage tribes, on rock-bound shores 1 

Doubtless, the religious sentiment was the controlling and 
first moving cause ; but it seems not to have been the only 
one ; — for, as I have before observed, if the free enjoyment 
of their own religion in their own way, was the sole motive, 
then there was no reason for leaving Holland, where their 
persons, their property and opinions, were absolutely pro- 
tected by the law of that land. They left England, it 
is true, for this one cause ; but they left Holland for that 
and for other causes, which the Pilgrims themselves 
have set forth, in their own language, so that they 
might be known of all men, and respected by their 
descendants. I repeat again, that the first and leading 
motive; that which lay at the foundation of all their designs 
and actions, was the religious sentiment and feeling, which 



17 

glowed in their hearts, and imparted an energy to their con- 
duct, unknown to common men, unfelt by ordinary minds. 
But there was also a feeling of human misery, as strangers 
in a strange land ; a yearning after kindred associations, 
and a love of their own country, which no exile among a 
strange people could subdue, no absence could make them 
forget, no estrangement by time could overcome. Hear 
the reasons for their enterprise, assigned by one who was 
with them from the beginning, and knew all their designs 
and all their motives. 

" They had come," says Governor Bradford, " to a coun- 
try where they saw many goodly cities^ strongly walled, 
and filled with armed men ;" but they heard, also, " a 
strange and uncouth language, and beheld manners and 
customs, so far differing from the villages wherein they 
were born, and bred, and had so long lived, that it seemed 
to them as if they were come into a new world. But these 
were not things which much took up their thoughts, for 
they had other work on hand ; and it was not long before 
they saw the grim and griseled face of poverty coming upon 
them, like an armed man, with whom they must buckle 
and encounter, and from whom they could not fly. After 
having lived in Holland about eleven or twelve years, in 
the agitation of their thoughts, and after much discourse, 
they began to incline to the conclusion of removal to some 
other place, not out of any new fangledness,or other such like 
giddy humour, by which men are sometimes transported, 
but for sundry weighty and solid reasons. 

And first ; they found by experience, the hardness of the 
place and country to be such, that few would come to them, 
and fewer abide with them ; for many that came and de- 
sired to remain, could not endure the great labor they were 
contented to undergo. So severe, indeed, were their suf- 
ferings, that many who desired to enjoy the ordinances of 

2 



18 

God in their purity, and the liberty of the Gospel with them, 
yet preferred prisons in England, rather than liberty in Hol- 
land, with these afflictions. But it was thought that if a 
better and easier place of living could be had, it would take 
away these discouragements. 

Secondly ; they saw that, although the people generally 
bore their difficulties with cheerfulness and courage, while 
in the best of their strength, yet old age had begun to come 
on some, which was hastened before its time by their great 
and continued labors ; and it was seen, that within a few 
years, they must, of necessity, sink under their burthens, or 
be scattered before them. Adopting, therefore, the pro- 
verb, that a " wise man seeth the plague when it cometh, 
and hideth himself," so they, like skilful and beaten sol- 
diers, fearful of being surrounded by their enemies, unable 
to fight or fly, thought it better to dislodge betimes to some 
place of better advantage and less danger, if any such could 
be found. 

Thirdly; as necessity was a task-master over them, so 
they were forced to be such to their servants and children, 
which did not only wound the hearts of many a loving fa- 
ther and mother ; so it produced many sad and sorrowful 
effects. For the children, although willing to bear a part of 
the burthen of their parents, were oftentimes so oppressed 
with their heavy labors, that, although their minds 
were free and willing, yet their bodies became de- 
crepit in their early youth ; the vigor of nature being con- 
sumed, as it were, in the very bud. But what was more 
lamentable, and, as they said, of all sorrows most heavy to 
be borne, was, that many of their children were drawn away 
by evil examples of the Dutch into dangerous courses ; 
some becoming soldiers, others taking upon them far voy- 
ages by sea, or other causes tending to dissoluteness ; so that 
they saw that their posterity would be in danger to degen- 



19 

erate and be corrupted ; wherefore, considering how hard the 
country was where they lived ; how many, having spent 
their estate, were forced to return to England ; how griev- 
ous it was to live from under the protection of the State of 
England ; how like they were to lose their language and 
their English name ; how unable they were to give to their 
children such education as they themselves had received — 
they conceived that if God would be pleased to discover 
some place unto them, even though in America, and give 
them so much favor with the King and State of England as 
to have their protection there, where they might enjoy like 
liberty, and show by example, their tender countrymen, no 
less burdened than themselves, where they might live and 
comfortably subsist, free from anti-Christian bondage, keep- 
ing their name and nation, and be a means, not only to en- 
large the dominions of their native State, but the Church of 
Christ also ; they thought they might more glorify God, do 
more good to their country, better provide for their posterity, 
and live to be more refreshed by their labors, than they ever 
could in Holland. And last, though not least, to use their 
own language, " they had great hope and inward zeal of 
laying some good foundation for the propagating and ad- 
vancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ, in those re- 
mote parts of the world." 

These were the reasons assigned by the Pilgrims them- 
selves for the great and perilous enterprise of exploring and 
settling a new world. Nor let it be thought that the dangers 
to be encountered, the hardships to be endured, and the dif- 
ficulties to be overcome, were not present to their minds and 
imaginations. "The places upon which their eyes were bent," 
says Governor Bradford, " were some of those unpeopled 
countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habita- 
tion; where there were only savage and brutish people, which 
range up and down, little otherwise than the wild beasts." 



20 

But when these propositions were made public, the doubt- 
ing were alarmed and the timid dismayed, alleging things 
neither unreasonable nor improbable : as that it was a 
great design, subject to inconceivable perils and dangers 4 
then the length of the voyage, which the weak bodies of 
men and women, bowed down by age and toil, could never 
endure ; the miseries also, to which they would be exposed 
in the new found country from famine, want and nakedness, 
and the yet greater dangers among a people represented to 
them as " barbarous, savage, cruel and treacherous : fu- 
rious in their rage, merciless in their conquests : not con- 
tent to take away life merely, but delighting to torment 
men, by flaying them alive, and broiling them on coals." 
And surely, these things could not but move the brave, and 
make the timid " to quake and tremble." To these were 
added, the precedents of ill success in like designs, with the 
remembrance of the hardships endured in Holland, upon 
their first removal thither. For the abortive attempts to plant 
in other parts of the country, were well known to the emi- 
grants ; so much so, that they were described as being 
'^ like the habitations of the foolish, cursed before they had 
taken root." 

And what answer could be given to objections so obvious 
and formidable ? Who could observe the perils of the voy- 
age, and yet conceal the hardships to be endured, or chase 
away the visions of hostile savages surrounding the feeble 
adventurers, upon their first landing ? Nothing like this was 
attempted ; but in bold and manly language they proclaim- 
ed that all great and honorable actions were accompanied by 
difficulties, and must be overcome by answerable courage. 
The dangers were admitted to be great, but not desperate ; 
the difficulties many, but not invincible ; and that all of 
them, through the help of God, might be borne, or over- 
come, by fortitude and patience. 

True it was, that such attempts were not to be made, but 



21 

upon good ground and reason ; not rashly, or lightly, for 
curiosity or the hope of gain. Their ends, they said, were 
good; their calling lawful and urgent; and therefore, they 
might expect the blessing of God in their proceedings: "yea, 
although they should lose their lives in this action, yet that 
they might have comfort in the same, and their endeavors 
would be honorable." 

Honorable, indeed, were their endeavors ; and thrice 
honored be their names and memories, who were actuated 
by such high purposes, and sustained by such brave perse- 
verance. 

It will be observed here, with what natural simplicity 
they describe their feelings and disclose their motives of ac- 
tion ; and among them, one, not the least observable, is 
their love of home, language and country ! That myste- 
rious tie, which binds men to the land of their birth ; that in- 
nate sympathy with the accents of our early days, which 
neither time nor distance can destroy ; that yearning after 
kindred associations, which will not be denied ; that home- 
sickness of the heart, when banished from the scenes of its 
youth and affections, which not even the great Roman ora- 
tor could endure ; these, all these, are most observable in 
the character and feelings of our ancestors. 

They lived in Holland, "as men in exile and in 
a poor condition." But they seem to have felt as if 
their banishment were removed, if again they could be 
placed in connection with their native country, and un- 
der the protection of its power. On those western shores, 
to which they had turned their eyes, they would be objects 
of solicitude to their distant friends and relatives. Sub- 
jects of the same king, obedient to the same parliament, 
they would be Englishmen still, though Englishmen in a 
distant land. Their habitations might indeed be changed, 
but their country would remain the same. Exiles no more, 



22 

for they were a part of the British Empire ; and the flag 
which floated over their heads was the same banner which 
had waved on the fields of their fathers' fame. " May not," 
exclaims Governor Bradford, "and ought not, the chil- 
dren of these fathers rightly say, ' our fathers were English- 
men which came over the great ocean, and were ready 
to perish in this wilderness.' " 

Our ancestors were proud of their nation, and they could 
not suffer the ties which bound them to the spot where they 
were born to be entirely severed. Englishmen by birth ; 
Englishmen they would live and die. The sun, when he 
rose, came from their native land, and had warmed its soil 
by his early beams. The stars of night had been gazed 
upon by them under the broad canopy of heaven, while 
standing by the doors of their fathers ; and their relatives 
and friends in a far-distant land, would breathe a prayer for 
their safety and success as members still of the same great 
family; and thus their nationality itself would be preserved. 

Then again, the language of their youth would not be 
forgotten or lost, but would be preserved and extended far 
and wide, over new and boundless regions ; and this, too, 
was a matter of pleasing anxiety to them. 

And which of us of New England origin, now here as- 
sembled, is there, who is not ready to thank those wise and 
thoughtful men, for the great gift of that noble tongue, in 
which our mothers first taught us to speak 1 Who would 
not lament if it had been confounded and lost in the hard 
jargon of Holland ? Who would alter it, that he might 
" babble a dialect of France?" Who would change its 
terse and manly accents for the soft voice of Italy, or the 
sonorous periods of Spain ? No ; if we — 

" Would delight our private hours 
With music or with poem, where so soon 
As in our native language, can we find 
That solace ?" 



23 

Language of Shakspeare and of Milton ! Language of 
the Pilgrims ! Having sounded its loud alarums in the 
great cause of freedom on its native shores, from the tongues 
of Burke, of Fox, and of Chatham, it has been echoed 
across the Atlantic and poured out in thunders from the 
lips of Webster, of Clay, and Calhoun ! Language of 
free-born men ! It has fixed its abode upon this western 
continent, here to remain, and advance, and spread out, un- 
til its voice shall have been heard in every valley and on 
every hill-top, between the risfng and the setting sun. Nor 
shall its sounds cease to echo and vibrate in its new abode, 
while man shall retain the power of self-government, and 
the love of liberty be cherished in his bosom. 

Observe, also, the great forecast of our ancestors in their 
anxiety to give their children that education which should 
fit them to be Englishmen, speaking the English language, 
protected by English laws, and enjoying English liberty. 
All these were precious in their eyes ; and if they could 
have but one privilege more, the liberty of enjoying the 
forms of their own religion in their own way ; then, though 
seas were put between them and their native land, they 
were no longer exiles, no longer wanderers without a home, 
without a country. 

In pursuance of this design, they procured the principal 
Secretary of State, " to move his Majesty, King James, by a 
private motion, to give way to such a people, who could 
not so comfortably live under the government of another 
State, to enjoy their liberty of conscience under his gracious 
protection in America, Avliere they would endeavor the ad- 
vancement of his Majesty's dominions, in the enlargement 
of the Gospel by all due means." This, his Majesty said 
was a good and honest motive ; and asking what profits 
might arise in the part they intended 1 'twas answered, 
"fishing." To which he replied with his ordinary assever- 



24 

ation, " So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade, 'twas 
the Apostles' own calling." 

Upon this hint, for the pedantic trifler would not in plain 
terms grant the favor thus sought, they obtained from the 
Virginia Company that patent, which furnished the title 
under which our ancestors undertook the greatest enter- 
prise in the annals of their race. 

This Company, it appears, was ready to grant them a 
patent with ample privileges, and were desirous that they 
should undertake the expedition; "but the King would only 
connive at them," says Bradford ; "he would not molest 
them if they carried themselves peaceably, but he would 
not tolerate them, by public authority, under his seal." 
Although not satisfied with this Royal manifestation of 
kindness, they concluded, nevertheless, to act upon it, consid- 
ering, that " if there was no security in the promise thus in- 
timated, there would be no greater certainty in a further 
confirmation of it. For if afterwards there should be a 
purpose or desire to wrong them, though they had a seal as 
broad as the house-floor, it would not serve the turn, for 
there would be means enough found to recall or reverse it." 

With these resolutions, and under this title, they em- 
barked. But would it give them a fair right to take pos- 
session of lands in other regions, by a deed from a Company 
which had itself obtained its title, under a grant from the 
crown ? Upon this subject you must permit me to make a 
few remarks in defence of the first settlers of New England; 
as their occupation of a territory, partially in possession of 
another race, has been a theme for much reproach upon 
them, and their sense of justice. 

In the first place, it may be observed, that at the time of 
the early settlements, it was the universal opinion among 
Europeans, that the discovery of a new country inhabited 
by races of uncivilized men, gave to the first discoverers an 



25 

inchoate right of control over it ; and upon this foundation 
lay all the English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese 
grants. 

Indeed, this is the doctrine of modern times, and has on 
a late and momentous occasion, been the subject of critical 
examination by two powerful nations, almost in the attitude 
of war. The whole controversy concerning Oregon turned 
upon the question of discovery and of formal possession, for 
neither England, nor Spain, nor the United States, had ever 
occupied the territory to any considerable extent. Indeed, 
the Supreme Court of the United States, with that great 
jurist. Judge Marshall, at its head, decided not many years 
ago, that all our land titles in this country, are founded upon 
grants made by the nations who claimed to have been the 
first discoverers, and not upon those issued by the Pope, 
with a liberal hand, to bis Catholic children. 

The Northern Continent of America was discovered, as 
you all well know, in the year 1497, by John Cabot, a 
Portuguese mariner, then in the service of Henry the VII. of 
England : and this discovery being carried out by Gosnold, 
Hudson and Smith, enabled the English crown to claim cer- 
tain portions l^of it, as subject to colonization and grant, 
agreeably to the then received notions of title. Capt. John 
Smith, of famous memory, having in the year 1614, ranged 
along the coast of New England, from Penobscot to Cape 
Cod, formed a map of the country, which he presented to 
King James. The impression at that time, and for a con- 
siderable period afterwards, was, that this part of the coun- 
try, so full of unexplored bays and jutting headlands, was 
an island : and it was thought to resemble the mother 
country, both in soil and climate, so much, that Smith be- 
stowed upon it the name of New England ; which name 
Prince Charles afterwards graciously confirmed. The coun- 
try itself was described by one of the early writers, as being 



26 

like England in many particulars : somewhat the same 
" for heat and cold in summer and winter, champagne 
ground, but not high mountainous ; full of vales and 
meadow ground, of rivers and sweet springs, as England is. 
But principally, as far as we can yet find, it is an. island, and 
near about the same quantity of England, being cut out 
from the mainland in America, as England is from the 
main of Europe, by a great arm of the sea, which entereth 
in forty degrees, and runneth up northwest and by west, 
and goeth out either into the South Sea or else into the Bay 
of Canada." The Indians also had the same impression, 
confidently affirming that either the Dutch or French passed 
through from sea to sea between Plymouth and Virginia. 

'^ North America," says the historian, Hubbard, " is, as 
to its nativity, of the same standing with her two elder sis- 
ters, Peru and Mexico, yet was suffered to lie in its swad- 
dling-clothes one whole century of years ; nature having 
promised no such dowry of rich mines of silver and gold to 
them who would espouse her for their own, as she did unto 
the other two ; which possibly was the reason why she was 
not so hastily courted by her first discoverers." 

For more than a century, then, after the first discovery of 
the Northern continent, and for a like period after its whole 
coast had been traced, from Newfoundland to the southern 
point of Florida, the territory of what is now called New 
England remained almost untouched by the foot of Euro- 
pean adventure. The cupidity of mankind was not tempted 
to invade her neglected shores, by mines of gold, or treasures 
of silver. The silent forests threaded only by their wild and 
aboriginal inhabitants, were untrodden by the armed heel 
of the Spanish warrior, who had long before scaled the 
Andes, red with the blood of conquest ; unassailed by the ad- 
venturous Portuguese, who had doubled the Cape of Hope ; 
and disregarded by that monarch who had furnished Cabot 



27 

with the means of pointing- out this wide country to 
Europe. 

It is not perhaps expedient, or profitable, to go back to 
abstract theories as to the rights of possession ; free, 
absolute and exclusive possession, which belonged to those 
who occupied, and from time immemorial had occupied the 
soil upon which we now stand. But it has always seemed 
to me a question in morals, not altogether clear, that bands 
of roaming savages have a right, to shut from the sun all 
the joyful fruits of the earth, that beasts of chase may lie 
forever secluded in the depth of their boundless forests. — 
If this were an original question, I confess that the axe of 
the woodman would ring on my ears as pleasantly as the 
war-whoop of the savage. The quiet villages of New Eng- 
land seem to me now as beautiful, and as becoming- to the 
fair face of nature, as the wigwams of the Indians. The 
spires of churches pointing- upwards to heaven, as if to in- 
vite our. contemplations thither, also appear in my eyes, 
objects quite as worthy of regard, as the victim bound to the 
stake, and surrounded by tortures intended to tempt the en- 
durance of his steadfast soul. 

The deep solitude of the forest fills the human mind with 
gloomy thoughts and dark imaginings. Was it intended 
by the God of nature that this silence should remain forever 
unbroken 1 That these recesses should never be penetrat- 
ed? That the beams of a glorious luminary, should never 
dispel the pestilential vapor from the swamp, or warm the 
generous soil into prolific and life-supporting returns for its 
cultivation and improvement ] Was it destined by Provi- 
dence, that ignorance should always prevail in the bound- 
less regions of America? and that she alone, of all the 
world, should be shut out from the blessings of civilization, 
and all the aspirations of hope in the ennobling forms pre- 
sented by the Christian faith ? Had the native Indian such 



28 

an exclusive right, in a moral point of view, to the posses- 
sion and occupancy of millions of acres, not required by his 
necessities, merely because he happened to be upon the 
soil when it was first seen by the adventurous, yet civilized 
European ? Could the sufferings thousands of Ireland and 
Germany be, at this time, with justice excluded by the na- 
tives from a participation in the blessing-s and enjoyments 
which may be afforded by the unoccupied wastes of this 
vast continent ? Was a country capable of sustaining mil- 
lions of human beings in comfort and competency, to be 
restricted to the use of a few thousands of savages, dressed 
in skins, and roaming over their broad lands, in pursuit of 
the deer, the beaver, and the buffalo ? 

It seems to me, there is no law of morals, no rule of 
right, no command of religion, according to any form or 
manner of belief, — which does or can assert, or maintain, 
any such title to an absolute, exclusive, adverse possession, 
on the part of the aborigines. They had claims, beyond 
doubt, which were to be respected and upheld. They 
could not, with any show of justice, be driven altogether 
from the graves of their fathers ; but our ancestors could 
fairly claim a right to participate in that occupancy which 
the Creator intended for all his creatures. The hunter 
state was not that which was originally established for man; 
and it was only when he had fallen and become degenerate, 
that, assimilating himself to the tiger and Avolf, man be- 
came himself a prowling beast of prey. No ! These fair 
regions were not destined for eternal solitudes. Savages 
with their victims were not to occupy, exclusively and for- 
ever, the thousand hills of the cattle, and all the pleasant 
valleys of the husbandman. A better and a nobler use was 
reserved for them. Ignorance was to be banished before the 
face of civilization ; the ferocity of the untamed hunter, 
was to be softened down by the combined influence of 



/ 



29 

knowledge and religion ; the trees of the forest were to 
give place to the olive and the vine; the rose was to blush 
and the violet to bloom where the briar and the thorn 
claimed occupation; and the fair face of nature was to shine 
out in all that beauty for which it was originally created. 
" God," said our ancestors, " had brought a vine into 
this wilderness ; had cast out the heathen and planted it ; 
and had also made room for it ; and he caused it to take 
root, and it filled the land ; so that it had sent forth 
its boughs to the sea, and its branches to the river." 

But irrespective of such considerations, the first settlers of 
New England were always regardful of the rights of the 
natives and endeavored upon all occasions to protect them 
in their just privileges, while at the same time they re- 
strained their ferocity, and checked their aggressions. It is 
well known to you all, as a matter of familiar history, that 
antecedently to the arrival of the Mayflower at Plymouth, 
the whole country, bordering upon that coast, and extending 
far inland, had been so desolated by a pestilence that it was 
nearly, if not quite depopulated ; and it was several months 
after their first landing at Cape Cod, before the Pilgrims 
had an opportunity of speaking with Samoset, the first na- 
tive with whom they held parley. He informed them that 
about four years before their arrival, all the inhabitants of 
that vicinity had died of an extraordinary disease, and that 
there was "neither man, nor woman, nor child remaining." 
"Indeed," says an early writer, "we found none ; so, 
there was none to hinder our possession, or lay claim unto 
it." 

The great patent, issued by King James, in 1620, recites 
that he had been given certainly to know, that the country 
about to be occupied had been depopulated, so that there 
was not left, for many leagues together, any that did claim 
or challenge any interest therein ; and therefore, says the 



30 

Charter, it was supposed that the appointed time was come, 
" that those large and goodly territories, deserted as it 
were, by their natural inhabitants, should be possessed and 
enjoyed by. such as should, by the powerful arm of God, 
be directed and conducted thither." And the grant was 
made in terms, for " the enlargement of the Christian reli- 
gion, to stretch out the bounds of the king's dominions, and 
to replenish those deserts with people, governed by laws, 
and for the more peaceable commerce of all, who should 
have occasion to traffic in those territories." 

It seems that the country lying between Plymouth and 
the great Narragansett Bay, was under the jurisdiction and 
sway of Mas-sas-so-it, Sachem of the Wampanoags, a tribe 
residing in the vicinity of Moimt Hope, and chief ruler also 
of all the nations who dwelt between that Bay and the sea. 
This chief went to Plymouth, (which was then called 
Patuxetby the Indians,) on the 22d of March, 1621, with a 
band of sixty armed men to meet the newly arrived strang- 
ers. They saluted him with words of love from King 
James, desiring to traffic, and make a firm peace with 
the chief, as their next neighbor. This communication 
was well received by the savage monarch ; and thereupon 
a treaty of six articles was entered into between the Pil- 
grims and Massassoit ; which was kept with good faith, 
on both sides, during his whole life. Indeed, so far as 
I have been able to discover, the first settlers of Ply- 
mouth, of Massachusetts, of Connecticut, New Haven and 
Rhode Island, never did usurp any claim of title to the 
Indian lands, without their free consent, manifested either 
by gift or purchase. 

It is true that the considerations paid, may seem incon- 
siderable, estimating land by its present value ; but when 
one Englishman sold to another, one fourth part of a com- 
mon sized township, for a wheelbarrow, you may readily 



31 

imagine that land was in no special estimation with the in- 
dolent native, who deemed all employment in its cultiva- 
tion to be below the dignity of a warrior, and fit only for 
women. 

The grantees under the New Plymouth patent were ex- 
pressly instructed by the Company, if the savages claimed 
any right of inheritance, to obtain their title by purchase ; 
that " the least scruple of intrusion might be avoided." 
And in 1676, after the war with King Philip began, Gov- 
ernor Winslow of Plymouth, openly asserted, that before 
those troubles broke out, the English did not possess one 
foot of land in that Colony, but what was fairly obtained by 
honest purchase, from the Indian proprietors. "We found," 
says Cushman, "the place w^here we lived empty; the people 
being all dead and gone away, and none living near by 
eight or ten miles ; and though, in time of hardship, we 
found some eight bushels of corn hid up in a cave, and 
knew no owners of it, yet, afterwards learning of the own- 
ers, we gave them, in their estimation, double the value of 
it. Our care also, hath been to maintain peace amongst 
them, and we have always set ourselves against such of 
them as used any rebellion or treachery against their own 
governors ; and^ when any of them are in want, as often 
they are, in the winter, when their corn is done, we supply 
them to our power, and have them in our houses, eat- 
ing and drinking, and warming themselves ; which thing, 
though it be something a trouble to us, yet because 
they should see and take knowledge of our labors, order 
and diligence, both for this life and a better, we are con- 
tent to bear it." 

The people of Plymouth procured titles to the land occu- 
pied by them from Massassoit, who claimed it all as his 
own, and that he alone had a right to dispose of it ; and it 
was from him and his sons that the first grants were ob- 



32 

tained. "It is mine," said he, "and mine is the sole claim 
in existence." But his chiefs gave their assent also, and 
signed deeds, on several occasions. Neither was this ac- 
complished, says Winslow, "by threats and blows, or shak- 
ing of sword, or sound of trumpet ; for as our faculty that 
way is small, and our strength less, so our warring with 
them is after another manner, namely, by friendly usage, 
love, peace, honest carriage, and good counsel." 

Indeed, this objection to the occupancy of the country 
by the first settlers, is as old as their pilgrimage, and was 
met and answered by them, at the time. 

Mr. Cushman, in his reasons for removing from England 
to America, given in 1621, states expressly, that he does 
not put the right of colonization upon that of discovery, 
which was then assumed by all nations as the foundation 
of title; on the contrary, after mentioning that claim, he 
passes it by, "lest he shovild be thought to meddle with that 
which did not concern him, or was beyond his discerning ;" 
and he places " the right to live in the heathen's country," 
upon the hope of their conversion, and the unoccupied con- 
dition of the country, where " its few inhabitants only ran 
over the grass like the foxes and wild beasts, without in- 
dustry, art, science, skill, or faculty to use the land." 
Then again, he asserts an express grant from Massassoit, 
with divers of his chiefs, " which was obtained," says he, 
" by friendly composition." Indeed, the people of Ply- 
mouth never did, until after Philip's war, claim or obtain 
any lands belonging to the Indians, by violence or conquest. 
After the defeat and dispersion of the Wampanoags, fifty- 
six years after the first settlement, then, and not till then, 
were the lands occupied by them, sequestrated by the con- 
querors, for the benefit of wounded soldiers, and those who 
had been ruined by the desolations of that fierce contest. 

And so, too, of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and 



33 

Rhode Island ; their titles were all derived by deeds and 
g-rants from the Indians. In the year 1631, before the 
country between Boston and Hartford had been explored, a 
chief living- near the banks of the Connecticut, made a 
journey to Plymouth and Boston, for the express purpose 
of inviting a settlement on that river. He described the 
fertility of the soil, and promised, if the English would 
make a plantation there, he would annually supply them 
with beaver skins and corn. His object was, amongst 
other things, to obtain their protection against the Pequots, 
the most fierce and warlike of the Indian tribes ; and when 
the settlements were afterwards begun upon the Connecti- 
cut, the Indian title was extinguished in every case by their 
own free and voluntary consent, without violence or fraud 
on the part of the whites. Indeed this could not well be 
otherwise, for until the subjugation of the Pequots, in the 
year 1637, the settlers had no power to coerce the Indians, 
being themselves but a feeble band, constantly, occupied in 
the cultivation of the land, for the means of subsistence. 
And this led them, as a matter of necessity rather than 
choice, to seek the banks of rivers which were compara- 
tively free from trees, and better prepared to receive the 
plough than the hill-sides and the plains. At the close of 
the year 1636, there were not more than two hundred and 
fifty men in the towns planted upon the river ; and hence, 
it would have been madness to practise either fraud or 
violence upon the natives, who were infinitely superior to 
the settlers, both in numbers and power. 

And as the plantations extended, so in every case did the 
colonists begin their labors by purchases of the land from 
the native occupants, giving fair and satisfactory equiva- 
lents in return. If the title of the savage to his native soil 
was ever disregarded, it was not by the first settlers, or 
their descendants. On the contrary, when in 1687, the 

3 



34 

charters granted to the colonists had been vacated by the 
British Crown, and the title of the planters derided, they put 
themselves expressly upon the grants furnished by the 
natives themselves. But Andros, with the haughty insolence 
of delegated power, declared that Indian deeds were no 
better than " the scratch of a bear's paw ;" and the occu- 
pants were actually compelled, in many instances, to take 
out new patents for their own lands at a heavy charge. I 
think, therefore, that we may challenge the world to show 
one instance where our ancestors usurped a title to the 
landof thelndiansjorunjustlyexpelled themfromit. On the 
contrary, their claims were always conceded and respected ; 
and while the right to colonize was asserted, the title of the 
occupant of the soil was never overlooked or disregarded. 

In this connection we may observe also, that it has not 
unfrequently been made a subject of charge against the 
first settlers of New England, that they were oppressive and 
unjust towards the aboriginal inhabitants, not only in res- 
pect of their lands, but also in their personal and political 
relations ; that if they did not openly assail the natives 
with violence, they tempted them, nevertheless, to deeds 
of outrage, that a pretext might be afibrded for their de- 
struction. Poetry has given her aid to this subject ; and the 
most beautiful writer New York has yet produced, has pur- 
sued the theme with all the powers of genius and eloquence, 
in his essays on this vanished race. Carried away by the 
fervor of this author's imagination, one might suppose that 
our ancestors were little better than a band of lawless plun- 
derers, who trampled down the rights of the natives, spoil- 
ing them of their homes, and devastating their country. 
Philip of Pokanoket, has furnished a subject, not only 
for the resistless power of Mr. Irving's description, but for 
the poetic imaginings of Sands and of Eastburn ; and the 
last of this kingly race is clothed with all the savage virtues 
of a Homeric hero. 



35 

Such sketches are the work of fancy, not of historical 
truth and accuracy ; for it may be asserted with entire con- 
fidence, that for more than half a century after the arrival 
of the Mayflower, the Pilgrims and their descendants lived 
in peace and friendship with the natives, undisturbed by 
outbreaks or lawless ag-g-ressions. When Massassoit was 
ill, and thought to be dying, about three years after the 
first landing of the emigrants, Mr. Winslow was sent 
by the colony to pay him a visit at his royal residence, 
near Mount Hope. In the kindest manner this friendly 
messenger administered to his wants, and finally by his 
skill and -attention restored him lo health. In grateful 
recollection of this, Massassoit disclosed to the Plymouth 
Colony an intention on the part of the Massachusetts Indians 
to cut them off by a secret attack. At one time when 
Massassoit was invaded in his own country, and hard 
beset by the Narragansetts, he was relieved by the Eng- 
lish ; the enemy upon their approach, retiring to their 
own country without resistance. After the death of this 
chief, his two sons, Wamsutta and Mettacomb, named by 
the English at their own request, Alexander and Philip, 
went voluntarily to Plymouth to renew the ancient league 
of friendship between the two nations and pledge again 
their faith, fidelity and obedience to the English; and 
for twenty years after the death of Massassoit, peace was 
preserved between the parties. The same remarks which 
have been made with regard to the Pokanokets, are equally 
true when applied to the Narragansetts, — who for the same 
length of time remained at peace with the plantations of 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Plymouth, and Massachusetts. 
During all this period it was doubtless the policy of the 
first settlers as well as their wish, to preserve pacific rela- 
tions with their uncivilized neighbors. But this was not 
done by any poor or fawning submission in their weakness, 

3* 



36 

to superior power. Their conduct was always open, bold 
and manly. 

Canonicus the great chief of the Narragansetts, manifested 
some jealousy of the new comers shortly after their arrival, 
but chiefly because of the friendly relations which existed 
between them and his old enemies of Mount Hope. But 
our fathers knew full well how to deal with the savage, 
whether he came with the salutations of peace, or the 
war-whoop of his race. Early in the year 1622, a mes- 
senger from Canonicus ai rived at Plymouth, charged 
with a gift, at once significant and dangerous, " a bundle 
of new arrows, lapped in a rattlesnake's skin." This 
messenger was at first detained, but being considered as a 
mere herald from his master. Governor Bradford ordered 
him to be dismissed with bold threats, " daring them to do 
their worst;" and when informed by his interpreter that 
the rattlesnake's skin and arrows portended war and deso- 
lation, the intrepid governor stuffed the skin with powder 
and shot, and sent it back to Canonicus Avith the like 
defiance. " I'his message," says Winslow, " was sent by 
an Indian, and delivered in such sort as was no small terror 
to this savage king, inasmuch as he would not once touch 
the powder and shot, or suffer it to stay in his house or 
country ; whereupon the messenger refusing it, another 
took it up, and having been posted back from place to 
place a long time, at length came whole back again." 

Upon the death of Alexander, in 1662, he was succeed- 
ed by his brother, Philip, the renowned Metacomet, the 
hero of song and of story. This chief early began to scheme 
for^ the entire destruction of his white neighbors, although 
he could not bring a well-founded complaint to justify such 
cold-blooded atrocity ; for if he or his nation had suffered 
any wrongs from the aggressions of the settlers, they were 
neither deep or wanton, nor were they such as could in any 



37 

degree justify such fell and savage revenge. But the fact 
was not so. The English of Plymouth early perceiving 
an improvident temper on the part of the Indians, and a 
desire to alienate their lands, passed laws to prohibit such 
traffic with them, and secured to the Wampanoags and 
their descendants, all the fine country in the vicinity of 
.Mount Hope ; those lands and waters being peculiarly well 
suited to their condition ; the lands as corn land, and the 
waters abounding in fish and fowl. Nay, further, to pre- 
vent encroachments, the inhabitants on their northern 
frontier drew a strong fence from the Taunton river entirely 
across the border, to prevent their cattle from straying into 
the Indian possessions. 

Fiction has given to Metacomb an interest which he, in 
my judgment, in no wise deserves, either from his acts or 
personal character. It is true, by dissimulation and art, he 
drew all the neighboring tribes, including the Narra- 
gansetts, his old enemies, into a general and deep laid-plot 
for the total annihilation of the white race. Being suspect- 
ed and charged with it, he nevertheless solemnly denied 
all hostile intent, until the moment came when he could 
let loose his fierce warriors upon the midnight slumbers of 
the settlers, rousing them to a hasty defence by the glare 
of their burning dwellings. The war being begun, and 
by the Indians themselves, was pursued by our brave an- 
cestors with all that constancy for which thej were so 
remarkable, until Philip, by his death, expiated a portion 
of the bloody wrongs he had inflicted upon his neighbors. 
He plunged his nation into all the perils of war, but did 
not himself, so far as I can discover, encounter its dangers, 
for he was never seen in battle by any white man, from 
the commencement of his murders down to the time when 
he was slain. Indeed he was always the first, says Captain 
Church, to fly in every engagement ; and that brave officer, 



38 

in laying the plan for Philip's final surprise in the swamps 
of Mount Hope, acted upon this well-known habit, and bade 
his men shoot the first savage who silently fled, expecting- 
thereby to secure the death of this relentless sachem ; and 
his anticipations were all fulfilled ; for when the attack 
was commenced. Philip, starting at the first gun, rushed 
headlong from his concealment, and was slain by one of 
his own nation in his cowardly flight. How diff'erent was 
the conduct of his followers. One had openly called him, 
before the war began, " a white livered cur;" and in the 
last battle ever witnessed by the mortal eyes of Philip, his 
men stood their ground, so cheered on by the war-cries of 
one of their chiefs, that Captain Church, attracted by his 
bold conduct, asked an interpreter who that sachem was, 
and what he said. "It is old Annawan," replied the In- 
dian, "Philip's great captain, calling on his soldiers to 
stand to it and fight stoutly." 

Remember, then, that the settlers of New England had 
lived with their aboriginal neighbors in peace and friend- 
ship for more than fifty years before the great war began ; 
and those relations might have been maintained for ever, 
if the nations could have restrained the ferocity of their 
passions, or subdued their thirst for blood ; for I undertake 
to say that the complaints made by the Indians themselves, 
were not causes of war, even according to their own wild 
and savage notions. It may be that they would have 
melted away before the plough and the sickle; but they 
would have gone peacefully, and in the order of nature. 
The desolation of savage life cannot stand before the 
improvements of civilization ; and blessed be God that it 
cannot ! 

It is hardly necessary to vindicate the conduct of the 
first colonists of the Connecticut Valley, in relation to 
their contest with the Pequots, in the year 1637, as it is 



39 

universally admitted that the fault of that war lay entirely 
on the side of that fierce nation. The early emigrants to 
Windsor, Hartford, and Weathersfield, had never encroach- 
ed in any respect upon the territory of the Pequots, whose 
country lay on both sides of the Thames, far from the 
scenes of those early settlements ; and this proud tribe 
seems to have commenced hostile attacks upon their distant 
neighbors, from the mere thirst of blood, natural to 
barbarians in all parts of the globe. 'J'hey had murdered 
about thirty persons before the towns on the Connecticut 
attempted any resistance ; but finding themselves at last in 
a most critical position, and driven to the necessity of 
venturing upon a contest for the preservation of their lives, 
they entered into it with all the fortitude and courage of 
their heroic race. Raising a little force of ninety men, 
they sent them in three small vessels, under the brave 
Captain Mason, by the way of the river and sound to the 
Narragansett Bay. Disembarking there, and trusting to 
savages for their guides, the stars of heaven for their 
canopy, the brooks and woods for their supplies, they 
traversed the whole territory of the Narragansetts, and 
approached the barbarians with such caution and celerity, 
as to take them entirely by surprise in their fort, upon the 
west side of the Mystic river. Then ensued a struggle, 
not merely for victory, but life itself, for if the at/.ack had 
failed, there was no retreat for this band of devoted men ; 
no escape from their merciless foes. But putting their trust 
in the God of battles, they charged directly upon seven 
times their numbers, with such determined impetuosity as 
to give the Pequots an overthrow from which they n^ver 
recovered ; and from that time forth the colony of Con- 
necticut remained in peace with all the native tribes, until 
the great conspiracy of Philip called them forth again with 
spear and shield, in their own just defence. 



40 

In this contest with the Pequots, the early settlers ex- 
hibited all their peculiar characteristics. Before their de- 
parture, Mr, Hooker addressed the little army with that 
confidence in an overruling Providence, which never on any 
occasion had deserted them. " Fellow soldiers ! (said he,) 
countrymen, and companions, in this wilderness work, who 
are gathered together this day by the inevitable providence 
of the Great Jehovah, not in a tumultuous manner, hurried 
on by the floating fancy of every hot-headed brain, but 
purposely picked out by the godly great fathers of this 
government, that your prowess may carry out the work 
where justice in her righteous course is obstructed. Every 
common soldier among you is now installed a magistrate. 
Then show yourselves men of courage ; yet remember that 
all true bred soldiers receive this as a common maxim : 
cruelty and cowardice are inseparable companions. And 
now to you I put the question, who would not fight in such 
a cause with an agile spirit and undaunted boldness? — 
Riches and honor are, next to a good cause, eyed by every 
soldier ; but although gold and silver be wanting, yet have 
you that to maintain which is far more precious, the lives, 
liberties, and new purchased freedoms of the endeared ser- 
vants of our Lord Christ Jesus, and of your second selves 
even, your affectionate bosom mates, together with the 
chief pledges of your loves, the comforting contents of 
harmless prattling and smiling babes; in a word, all the 
riches of that goodness and mercy that attends the people 
of God even in this life." Actuated by such motives, im- 
pelled forward by such considerations, sustained by such 
purposes, how could the early colonists of New England 
fail in their enterprises ? 

After the first struggles for mere existence on the part 
of the settlers were over, view them marching steadily for- 
ward in the paths of order, religion and morality ; enact- 



41 

ing laws, constructing roads, establishing schools, and edu- 
cating their children for the new business of self-govern- 
ment. The colonies, it is true, were under the general 
jurisdiction of the king and parliament, yet having by their 
charters the power of making laws, they entered at once 
upon these important concerns ; and perceiving that their 
institutions were to be unlike all others in the world, they 
immediately began to frame statutes suited to their pecu- 
liar wants. Having, been subject to the common law, and 
being well skilled in its maxims, they adopted such por- 
tions of it as were suited to their circumstances, but discard- 
ed, in effect, such English statutes as were not applicable 
to their new condition ; publishing at the same time, in one 
of the colonies, this preface to their own enactments : 
'' Now in these our laws, although we may seem to vary or 
differ, yet it is not our purpose to repugn the statute laws 
of England, so far as we understand them;" thereby ex- 
hibiting, perhaps the first great example of construing a 
constitution, as each man may comprehend it. 

They were not bound down to a servile imitation of Brit 
ish precedents, but considered the law in the abstract as con- 
taining rules of civil government, for free and thinking 
men, who were imposing just restraints upon themselves, 
and not dictating to others. The common law was evi- 
dently their admiration ; yet keeping the commandments 
in view, if they bowed down, they did not worship it. On 
the contrary, their reflections upon this great subject of law- 
making, were in a high degree original ; its importance 
immediately arresting their attention and commanding both 
solicitude and care. Mr. Cotton, or Mr. Davenport, com- 
posed and published in Boston, as far back as 1663, "A Dis- 
course on Civil Government in a New Plantation ;" and in 
1650 Mr. Ludlow, a distinguished jurist of Connecticut, com- 
piled a body of laws for that commonwealth, at the request of 



42 

its government; thus showing from the very outset, that civil 
rule, as it should be in a new plantation, was kept con- 
stantly in view ; and nothing is more striking or admirable 
than the early legislation of our ancestors upon natural, 
human rights, and the best mode of protecting them. 

With a bold defiance of customs immemorial, and of forms 
rendered sacred by antiquity, they commenced the progress 
of legal reform, from the moment their feet first pressed the 
sod of their new-found country. With no affected disre- 
gard for the wisdom and learning of their ancestors, with 
no pretensions to a more perfect knowledge of man's true 
social condition than that which prevailed at home, they 
did, nevertheless, from the beginning institute the inquiry, 
as to how much of an antiquated system was suited to their 
wants and condition ; and with a steady eye upon ancient 
precedents, begin a system of legal change, at once radical 
yet conservative. And I may here safely assert, that many 
if not all the important alterations made in the jurispru- 
dence of this State, within the last fifty years, have been 
borrowed, directly or indirectly, from the laws of New Eng- 
land, and especially from those of Connecticut. 

The subject of non-imprisonment for debt, for instance, 
concerning which so much has been said and done within 
the last twenty years, was considered and acted upon in 
New England two hundred years ago ; and the act passed 
by the State of New York in the year 1833, entitled, " an 
act to abolish imprisonment for debt, and to punish fraud- 
ulent debtors," is scarcely anything more than a transcript 
from an act of 1650, passed by the colony of Connecticut. 
The latter act provides " that no person should be arrested 
or imprisoned for any debt or fine, if the law could find any 
competent means of satisfaction from his estate ; and if not, 
his person might be arrested and imprisoned till satisfaction; 
provided nevertheless, that no man's person should be kept 



43 

in prison for debt but when there appeared to be some 
estate which he would not produce ;" and the chief differ- 
ence between the two lies in this, that the primitive act 
is clear and explicit, while the modern one is so blind and 
confused, that various constructions have been put upon it 
by different tribunals; and sometimes by the same tribunal. 
Nor was this exemption from imprisonment a vain illusion, 
" keeping the word of promise to the ear, but breaking it to 
the hope." It was substantial and complete; for no honest 
man in Connecticut could ever be kept in the cells of a 
prison. There was, it is true, a theory of non-imprison- 
ment for debt in other lands, but it w^as a theory only, well 
illustrated in the " Antiquary," as you may remember, by 
Mr. Oldbuck, in a dialogue with his nephew. " Nephew," 
said that amusing creation of Scott's fancy, " it is a re- 
markable thing that in this happy country no man can be 
legally imprisoned for debt." " The truth is, the king, in- 
teresting himself as a monarch should, in his subjects' private 
affairs, is so good as to interfere at the request of the creditor 
and to send the debtor his royal command to do him justice 
within a certain time, fifteen days, or six, as the case may 
be. Well, the man resists and disobeys. What follows ? 
Why that he be lawfully and rightfully declared a rebel to 
our gracious sovereign, whose command he has disobeyed, 
and that by three blasts of a horn at the market-place of 
Edinburg, the metropolis of Scotland. And he is then 
legally imprisoned, not on account of any civil debt, bu^ 
because of his ungrateful contempt of the royal mandate." 
In Connecticut there was no royal mandate which could send 
a man to jail with three blasts of a horn. 

Some years ago, letters upon this important subject of im- 
prisonment for debt, were addressed lo John Adams and 
Daniel Webster ; and each of those illustrious men stated in 
reply, that if it were an original and open question, neither of 



44 

them had any doubt of its oppressive character, nor the 
propriety of abolishing- it. And since that period a number 
of the States, as well as Congress itself, have interfered for 
the just preservation of human liberty, except in cases of 
crime. But here we find that in 1650 the persons of men 
were held free from the slavery of imprisonment when 
caused by misfortune or poverty ; while the dishonest 
debtor, who had the means of payment, but refused to appro- 
priate them to the discharge of his engagements, was to 
be treated as a felon, and to meet with a felon's reward. 
And so tender were they then of personal liberty, that 
the first process against a debtor was a summons command- 
ing him to appear and answer the complaint made against 
him ; and it was only upon his refusal that an attachment 
could be issued against him for his "wilful contempt." 

By another section of the same statute, which is also 
embodied in the far-famed modern code of New York, 
it was provided, that if any citizen of Connecticut was 
about to abscond, or convey away his estate with intent to 
defraud his creditors, then that an attachment might issue 
against him for the benefit of all his creditors. But to 
guard against' abuses, it was also provided, that if any 
attachment were laid upon an)^ man's estate upon a pre- 
tence of a great sum, and it was not proved to be due in 
some near portion to the sum mentioned in the attachment, 
then that the sureties always required upon the issuing of 
such process, should be liable for the damages sustained 
thereby. Could anything be more wise, just or prudent, 
than laws like these 1 And have we, in relation to the 
same subject, improved upon them down to this day ? But 
who, in modern times, has given credit to our ancestors for 
their labors of wisdom and charity in this behalf, or 
acknowledged the source from whence these improvements 
have been derived ? 



45 

So again, they had a proceeding- in relation to real 
property, very analogous to what is termed a creditor's bill 
in this State, (land being at that time a principal object of 
care and value in the colonies,) whereby creditors might 
have the benefit of its sale, by a very simple and inex- 
pensive process, in the order of the presenting of their 
claims. But there was a difference, nevertheless, between 
the modern and the ancient law, in this, that in cases 
of insolvency on the part of the debtor, the ancient law 
directs that the attachments should enure to the benefit of 
all creditors in proportion to their respective claims ; while 
the modern one gives a preference and priority to the most 
vigilant ; and in this particular the justice of the original 
act IS obvious and pre-eminent. So, in relation to trials by 
jury, (an institution which was the subject of the first law 
passed by the Plymouth settlement,) one colony had a 
most excellent provision, which might be adopted with 
decided benefit here in this city. It was, that juries might 
be called of six or twelve persons, according to the import- 
ance of the subject, and that a verdict of four out of six, 
and eight out of twelve, should be conclusive upon the 
parties, unless a new trial were granted.* Now, the 
requirements of our practice, derived from the laws of 
England, which demand an absolute unanimity in the 
minds of twelve men, even in civil causes, are oftentimes 
the source of much delay, expense, and injury, to all the 
parties concerned. Would not the pages written by our 
forefathers upon these important concerns disclose some- 
thing more than the ancients found in the leaves of a 
Sybiline oracle, blown about by the winds of heaven as the 
heralds of fortuitous prophecy and justice ? Our ancestors, 
with a far-reaching sagacity, also provided for a complete 
registration of all grants of land, in order that, by a public 
and open inspection of conveyances, clear evidences of title 



46 

might be found and preserved. To this day, England 
herself has not attained to these improvements, except in 
a limited niimber of counties ; and there each proprietor 
must trust to private care alone for the preservation of his 
estate. 

The complicated forms in civil proceedings, the volumin- 
ous pages of the conveyancer's deeds, and the tautology of 
English statutes were at once exploded, and in their place 
came simple and clear statements of claim and counter 
claim, direct and straight-forward pleadings, and brief, but 
comprehensive, evidences of title. An English deed for an 
hundred acres is engrossed on parchment, with the letters of 
the alphabet tortured into a thousand useless shapes, that 
ancient forms may be preserved. A New England deed, in 
one brief page, contams all the elements of a perfect con- 
tract between the parties, with a direct assurance of title. 
The known defects in the laws and practice of England 
pointed out and so strikingly stated by Lord Brougliam, in 
his great speech upon Law Reforms, delivered'in the House 
of Commons, in 1828, were discovered and banished from 
the New England States, while they were yet colonies 
under the British crown. Nor can I find any essential 
changes or improvements specified or called for by that 
remarkable statesman, which were not adopted by our 
ancestors years ago. 

You are aware that in England some of the most import- 
ant offices in the civil law courts, are held by prelates of 
the church, and that the whole law of marriage^and divorce, 
of personal estates, both testate and intestate, is adminis- 
tered under the control of bishops and archbishops. This 
being an inheritance from Rome, and one of the worst of 
the long-continued papal abuses, was abolished at once and 
forever by our ancestors, who committed these important 
trusts to responsible men, appointed by responsible tribu- 



47 

nals ; while dower and inheritance, which vary in Eng- 
land, with the varying- customs of counties and manors, 
were made uniform and consistent. 

The complicated proceedings of English courts in actions 
of ejectment were also discarded in the Eastern States, 
and it is only within the last twenty years that New York 
has adopted this obvious improvement from one of her near- 
est sisters. Then again, wise and equal laws were provided 
for a just distribution of estates among children and heirs, 
while tenures were made simple, and primogenitures abol- 
ished. In England all the lands of the ancestor, on one 
side of a river, might descend to the oldest son, on the 
other to the youngest ; while in a third place, the children 
might inherit equally. But in New England, the dictates 
of common sense and common justice were at once obeyed, 
and tenures placed upon their true foundations. And then, 
as to that law which prefers the first-born son te all others, 
in itself so iniquitous ; what had our ancestors to say to that ? 
They blotted it out from their statute-book, aud banished it 
forever. How otherwise could equal rights be maintained, 
or republican forms of government preserved "? In the 
proud monarchies of Europe, it became the policy of the 
aristocracy to preserve great estates in the same families in a 
direct line, that their influence might remain continuous 
and unbroken, thus transmitting from father to son not only 
the wealth of the ancestor, but his political influence also. 

But in a free country, how should we stand if the parent 
might entail upon his son whole towns and counties and 
states, even without any accompanying political authority ? 
Would free men contentedly ride, for thirty miles, by the 
side of a great estate, (as you may now in some parts of 
Great Britain) with the reflection in their minds, that in all 
time to come, die influence of that proprietor and his de- 
scendants must remain unchecked and undisturbed ? What 



48 

caused the most serious outbreaks among the people of 
Rome ? And why did they desert their city, and take re- 
fuge on the sacred mount ? The monopoly of lands by the 
rich, and the debts of the poor. What was the remedy pro- 
posed there ? A division of those lands among- persons 
whose claims upon them were those of hard necessity, if 
not of natural justice. But what distributive law did our 
ancestors provide to check, if not effectually destroy, this 
dangerous accumulation of wealth in the same hands 1 
They said that lands, where there was no will to direct 
otherwise, should descend to all the heirs alike ; that per- 
sonal property should be equally distributed, and the power 
of entailment so limited, that to preserve its existence it 
must be renewed inevery generation. This, says Judge Story, 
is the true agrarian law, which in all time to come will 
guard the just rights of acquirement and possession, while 
it corrects the great public evils of inordinate accumulation ; 
and you see how instantly our ancestors seized upon and 
adopted this indispensable restraint. 

Then the criminal laws of England, more bloody than 
the laws of Draco, were all remodeled, and their severities 
softened down ; even at that time, when the public mind 
had not begun much to consider this important subject. In 
all things, I assert with confidence, in relation to the laws, 
both public and private, our ancestors made great and mar- 
velous improvements upon those of the land from whence 
they took their origin. And these reforms became after- 
wards matters of the highest political concernment, when 
they had shaken off the control of the mother country. 
Republican in their habits of thinking and acting ; republi- 
can in their frugality ; republican in their laws and forms 
of government, the States of New England Avere early pre- 
pared for that great change wrought out for them by the 
war of the Revolution. Their civil and political rights were 



49 

well understood from the very beginning-; they were preserved 
and cherished through all their early struggles for existence, 
and were all prepared to be acted upon when the day of trial 
came. Hence it has been remarked, and with strict propri- 
ety, that at the time of our Independence, so slight was the 
connection between some of the colonies and the mother 
country in their relations of law and government, and the 
change interfered so little with their internal concerns, that 
the transition from a dependent to a sovereign condition 
was almost imperceptible. In Connecticut, they merely 
erased the name of " his majesty," from their legal pro- 
ceedings, and inserted, " by the name and authority of the 
State ;" and then, in all essential particulars, the adminis- 
tration of the law proceeded after the Revolution, exactly 
as it had done before. 

I presume, before dismissing this part of the subject, it 
may be expected, that I, considering my profession, should 
not pass by that which has been made a matter of scoffing 
and reproach upon a colony of New England, by those 
who, never investigating its reality, have caught from 
others the traditional jests connected with the blue laws of 
New Haven. 

In the first place, it seems to be supposed that there 
actually were, in that colony, grave enactments against 
offending beer-barrels, and that the austerity of Puritan 
practice even prohibited a mother from kissing her child on 
a Sunday. Let those who have lightly received such im- 
pressions, and lightly conveyed them to others, look into 
the early laws of New Haven, and tell me whether, upon 
such examination, any mirthful emotions can come over 
their minds 1 And let me remind them further, that most of 
the supposed enactments rest upon this one, of which, per- 
haps they may have heard : " Remember that thou keep 
holy the Sabbath day !" 

4 



50 

Nothing more solemn, nothing more imposing, nothing 
more grave or dignified, can be found in all history, than 
the first acts of the colony of New Haven, when they pro- 
ceeded to lay the foundations of their government. The 
free planters being all assembled, say their records, Mr. 
Davenport commenced the business by a sermon upon these 
words : '' Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn 
out her seven pillars." After this discouse and a solemn 
invocation of the name of God in prayer, they were re- 
minded of the business for which they had met ; that it was 
" for the establishment of such civil order as migh be most 
pleasing unto God, and for the choosing of the fittest men 
for the foundation work of a church to be gathered." Mr. 
Davenport thereupon proposed divers queries, praying them 
to consider seriously the weight of the business about which 
they had met, and not to be rash in giving their votes for 
things which they did not understand, but to digest thorough- 
ly, and without respect to men, what should be proposed to 
them, giving such answers as they would be willing should 
stand upon record for posterity! And thereupon it was pro- 
pounded in the first place, "whether the Scriptures hold 
forth a perfect rule for the direction and government of men 
in their duties." This was assented to without an opposing 
voice ; and let me ask whether there are any here present, 
who, if they had been standing by the side of Mr. Daven- 
port, on that solemn occasion, would have ventured to deny 
that such a rule may be found in those sacred writings 1 
The second question was, whether in the choosing of ma- 
gistrates, the making and repealing of laws and the dividing 
of lands, the planters would be governed by the rules which 
the Scriptures hold forth? This also was assented to, " and 
no man gainsayed it, and they did testify the same by hold- 
ing up their hands, both when it was first propounded, and 
afterwards confirmed the same, by holding up their hands 



51 

when it was read unto them in public." In the improve- 
ments of time, we have been taught by our necessities, many 
lessons in the mode of adapting laws to our changing con- 
dition ; but stand back in contemplation, two hundred years, 
and tell me where could you discover better models for the 
government of a free people, both in the choice of their 
magistrates and the division of their lands, than those found 
in the Jewish polity 1 Why, our own laws, in relation to 
the division of estates, do not differ essentially from the laws 
which governed the Hebrews ; their object being to secure 
not only an equal distribution of property, but to bring back, 
at given periods of time, to the same families, for equal use 
and enjoyment, such allotments of land as might have been 
alienated. Where in the annals of civilized Europe can 
you find the history of a government more free, or more 
republican, than that which existed among the Jews, during 
the period of their judges 1 and when was the choice of 
magistrates left more open and unrestrained than among 
the same people, at the same epoch ? What was there nar- 
row, or bigoted, or objectionable in the second query which 
I have read 7 for you will recollect that the proposition was 
not, to adopt Jewish laws and Jewish forms of government 
indiscriminately ; but whether fit rules for the choosing of 
magistrates, the framing of laws, and the division of lands 
might not be found in the Bible, including both Testaments, 
the new as well as the old ? And if the question were now 
proposed here, I venture to assert, that no man would 
** gainsay it, but all would testify for the same by holding 
up their hands, both when propounded, and when after- 
wards it should be read to them." The third query had 
reference merely to the form of admission to the church ; 
and the fourth was : " whether they held themselves bound 
to establish such civil order as might best secure the peace 
of the ordinances to them and their posterity;" and this, 

4* 



52 

of eourse, was carried without dissent ; for no man now, 
Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan, can find any objection 
to this proposition in the abstract, or as it was originally 
presented for consideration and adoption. 

Mr. Davenport thereupon declared from the Scriptures, 
that the magistrates to be entrusted with the matters of 
government, according to the rule thus adopted, must be 
" able men, such as fear God ; men of truth, hating covet- 
ousness." And if we could now, even in these days, by a 
like vote secure such magistrates, " fearing God and hating 
covetousness," I, for one, would " belong to that party." 
Mr. Davenport further declared, that by their vote they 
were free to cast themselves into any mould and form of a 
commonwealth, which appeared to them best, for the se- 
curing of the objects contemplated in his propositions ; and 
he charged Mr. Eaton the first Governor, in open court, 
that he should not respect persons in judgment ; that he 
should hear the small as well as the great and that he 
should not fear the face of man. 

Such were the rules adopted by that plantation, upon its 
establishment ; but from the strict administration of them, 
went forth the report concerning the blue laws of Connecti- 
cut. There were not in fact, any such enactments ; but there 
were trials for offences against the Sabbath, and against 
modest decency, founded upon the general law of morals, 
which have led to a misapprehension upon this subject, 
and served to cast ridicule where none whatever was 
deserved. 

Again : it has often been made a subject of reproach up- 
on our ancestors, that having left their own country for the 
sake of religious freedom, and the enjoyment of the rights 
of conscience unshackled and uncontrolled, they did never- 
theless, become themselves intolerant, the moment they 
were in possession of a country with their own supremacy 



53 

firmly established ; that they were narrow in their notions, 
selfish in their designs, exclusive in their purposes, and 
tyrannical in their acts ; willing to become the subjects and 
objects of universal religious emancipation themselves, but 
determined, at the same time, to subdue all others to their 
opinions. 

It seems to me, however, that this is an unfair mode of 
stating the case. The original settlers did not visit the in- 
hospitable shores of New England for any objects of univer- 
sal toleration ; nor for the purpose of allowing men of all 
religions, and no religion, an opportunity of planting their 
errors, or disseminating their infidelity. No ! Far differ- 
ent from this were the purposes and objects of those religious 
wanderers ; who, if misguided in their notions, and over 
scrupulous in their faith, were nevertheless sincere, devout, 
and upright. With them religious faith was a principle. 
It was a guide to their actions, a rule for their conduct, and 
a law for their government ; the " be all and the end all " 
of their objects in this world, and of their hope in that 
which is to come. 

What if they were misguided ? What if they were heat- 
ed with zeal ? What if they were exclusive in their opin- 
ions, stern in their judgments, and unyielding in their pur- 
poses ? Were they not actuated by the purest and the 
holiest motives that ever filled or agitated the breast of 
men 1 Had they not left the consolations of home, of kin- 
dred, and of country, for the express purpose of worshipping 
God in the wilderness in their own way '? Seeking no as- 
sociations with those who entertained different opinions j 
asking no favor, requiring no aid, or succor, or comfort, ex- 
cept from Him who saw their hearts, and knew that they 
were upright and pure ? It may be, that in their peculiar 
notions in relation to religious government they were mis- 
guided ; and as a rule of civil action we now all believe 



54 

that each creed, and every religion, should be permitted to 
exist by its own inherent truth, uncontrolled by human 
laws, unprotected by political favor, untrammelled by 
worldly device. 

This is the modern theory of republican and religious 
liberty, as maintained in this free, this charitable land ; but 
which finds little favor in any other part of the Christian 
world. We consider it, and as I think rightly, one of the 
natural, one of the legitimate, if not inevitable results of 
that great reform, which shook the papal structure to its 
centre, and shot through the bosoms of thinking men with 
an electric force which will never cease to operate, until its 
objects are accomplished, and man stands forth free from 
the dictations of his fellow men in all that binds him to a 
future state. 

But believe me, gentlemen of New England, this 
doctrine so free, so liberal, so republican, so just in itself, 
so necessary to our institutions, did not originate in minds 
filled with the ardor of that faith which sees but one object, 
and that object under but one form and pressure. Oh, no ! 
The most tolerant man was not, I think, originally the 
most devout man, although he might have been sincere. 
No ! His lips were not touched as with a live coal from 
the altar, who first proclaimed that there were no differ- 
ences to be regarded amongst men in their various creeds. 
Our fathers cherished their faith as the immortal principle 
which causes men to feel the necessity of another existence, 
and to yearn after it, with that overflowing of spirit which 
gives evidence of the full heart and the contrite soul. 

But I am ready to maintain that the original settlers of 
New England were not even intolerant, in the correct sense 
of that term, when we understand their purposes and ex- 
amine their actions. That the congregation of Mr. Robin- 
son did not desire to associate in civil government with 



55 

arians and ranters, with papists and infidels, may be true 
enough ; and why should they not be permitted to worship 
God by themselves, in their own way, undisturbed by con- 
flicting opinions, unheated by argument, unswayed by op- 
posite practice ? '1 hey sought not to make converts of 
others, excepting the heathen. They interfered with no 
man's religious belief, unless lie thrust himself upon their 
jurisdiction ; and within this pale they had, in my judg- 
ment, a perfect right to be exclusive. If there were others 
who thought that peculiarities of doctrine were not of the 
essence of faith, the wilderness was open, and they might 
have followed the example of the Pilgrims. " The world 
was all before them where to choose their place of rest ;" 
and neither Ann Hutchinson, nor 'I'homas Morton, the 
disturbing lawyer, nor even Roger Williams himself, had a 
right to come uncalled for, within the limits of Plymouth 
or Massachusetts, and then cry out, "persecution and 
intolerance." 

I would speak of Roger Williams with great respect, as 
of one who had the clearest perceptions of that which is 
both right and expedient in religious affairs, as connected 
with civil government. Viewing the question in its 
modern aspect, when time has made the truth clear, and 
experience has shown that the power of law need never be 
brought to act upon spiritual belief, we all of us bear 
witness to the abstract correctness of Mr. Williams' 
opinions. He may be considered as among the first of those 
who advanced and maintained the proposition, that there 
should be a total separation of ecclesiastical from civil con- 
trol ; and he is entitled to our admiration for the broad ex- 
tent of his views in the true administration of secular laws 
upon religious opinion. And yet, in my judgment, there 
never was a more unpropitious moment for the promulga- 
tion of his peculiar notions upon all these subjects than 
that selected by him in 1630 and 1632. 



56 

At that moment, the settlement in Massachusetts was but 
just begun. Endicott and Winthrop, and Higginson, and 
their associates, emigrated with feelings and purposes, and 
objects, similar to those which had induced Bradford and 
Winslow, and the Congregational Pilgrims of Leyden to 
seek a refuge in a distant land ; nor did the views and 
opinions of the emigrants to Massachusetts differ in any 
essential degree from those entertained by the inhabitants 
of Plymouth. Between these colonies there was generally 
harmonious thought and united action ; but in their re- 
ligious sentiments they were not intolerant. No, not as 
intolerant as we of the present day are ; although their 
civil condition, in some respects, differed widely from our 
own. In forming the structures of government, our an- 
cestors had to provide for order, safety, and subordination ; 
and that these might all be secured, they had recourse to 
those ordinances, which they had adopted from deep seated 
conviction ; and upon what better, or broader, or more en- 
during foundations, could they have rested the hopes of 
their new colony, than the eternal foundations of religious 
truth ? But these men were not, I assert again, either in- 
tolerant or narrow minded, or bigoted in the abstractions of 
religious belief. On the contrary, they respected the 
opinions of others ; being perfectly willing that they should 
be enjoyed without molestation ; and they only asked for 
themselves that which they freely granted to all mankind. 
That they had no good opinion of the superstitions of the 
Romish church, is true ; and that they considered the forms 
of worship kept up in the church of England as mere 
modifications of papal observance, is also true ; but at the 
same time, they had charity for its ordinances, and respect 
for its members. 

This charge of intolerance was an old charge, made 
against them, or rather against the independent churches, 



57 

to which the first settlers, for the most part belonged, more 
than two hundred years ago, and was answered by them at 
the time. " I have shown," (says Mr. Winslow) " that 
the foundation of our New England plantations was not 
laid upon schism, division, or separation, but upon love, 
peace and happiness, and also, that the primitive churches 
are the only pattern which the churches of Christ, in New 
England, have in their eyes ; not following Luther, Calvin, 
Knox, Ainsworth, Robinson, Ames, or any other, further 
than they follow Christ and his apostles." Is there any 
thing of bigotry or narrow minded sentiment in this 7 Any 
want of toleration or of respect for the opinions of others ? 
Any stiff-necked assertion of superior knowledge, virtue or 
purity 1 They would not follow any sect, further than that 
sect followed Christ and his apostles ; and surely, a 
truer rule, one more plain, direct and certain, could not be 
adopted. 

But what were the sentiments of John Robinson himself, 
upon this subject ? Hear his own words, addressed to 
his own church, at the time of their departure to begin the 
great plantation work in New England. Amongst other 
wholesome instructions, according to Mr. Winslow, he used 
expressions to this purpose : " 'J'hat we were now, ere long, 
to part asunder, and the Lord only knew whether ever he 
should live to see our faces again. But whether the Lord 
had appointed it or not, he charged us before God to follow 
him no further than he followed Christ." He took occa- 
sion also, miserably to bewail the state and condition of the 
reformed church, who wouldgo no further than the instru- 
ments of their reformation. As for example ; the Luther- 
ans could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; 
for whatever part of God's will he had further imparted 
and revealed to Calvin, they would rather die than em- 
brace it. "And so also," said he, "you see the Calvinists, 



58 

they stick where he left them ; a misery much to be lamented, 
for though they were precious shining- lights in their times, 
yet God had not revealed his whole will to them. And so 
he advised us by all means to endeavor to close with the 
godly party of the kingdom of England, and rather to 
study union than division, namely, how near we might 
possibly, without sin, close with them, than in the least 
measure to effect division or separation from them." 

Can you find anything in history more liberal than these 
beautiful and heartfelt remarks of the godly man, made 
upon his final separation from his church, when they were 
to " part asunder, and he never more to see their faces 
again ?" But was he sincere ? Hear the testimony of Mr. 
"Winslow upon this point. " For his doctrine " says he, 
*' I living three years under his ministry, before we began 
the work of plantation in New England, it was always 
against separation from any the churches of Christ ; pro- 
fessing and holding communion both with the French and 
Dutch churches, yea the tendering it the Scotch also ; even 
holding forth how wary persons ought to be in separating 
from a church." It is true he condemned the constitution of 
the church of England, but he condemned it as matter of opin- 
ion rather than of censure. '^ No man," said he, '' to whom 
England is known, can be ignorant that all the natives 
there, and subjects of the kingdom, although never such 
strangers from all show of true piety, and goodness, and 
fraught never so full with many most heinous impieties 
and vices, are without difference compelled and enforced by 
most severe laws, civil and ecclesiastical, into the body of 
that church ; every subject of the kingdom dwelling in this 
or that parish is bound, will he, nill he, fit or unfit, as with 
iron bonds, to participate in all holy things, and some un- 
holy too, in that same parish church." 

But the emigrants with Governor Winthrop, were scarcely 



59 

separated at all from the church of England ; desiring only- 
its reform in matters of practice. They had been born and 
brought up in the doctrines of that church, and lived in 
communion with it. Their ministers had been ordained by 
her bishops, and officiated in her parochial churches ; nor 
was there any secession until after their arrival in New 
England. Mr. Higginson, in taking a last look upon his 
native land exclaimed : " We will not say, as the separatists 
were wont to say, farewell Babylon ! farewell Rome ! but we 
will say farewell, dear England ! farewell the church of God 
in England, and all the christian friends there." Governor 
Winthrop, and his company, in a parting address " to the 
rest of their brethren in and of the church of England, speak 
of it as their ' dear mother,' from whom they could not 
part without much sadness of heart and many tears." 
** We leave it," said they, not " as loathing that milk 
wherewith we were nourished," " but blessing God for the 
parentage and education as members of the same body. We 
shall always rejoice in her good, and unfeignedly grieve for 
any sorrow that shall ever betide her ; and while we have 
breath, sincerely desire and endeavor the continuance and 
abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her 
bounds in the kingdom of Christ Jesus ; wishing our heads 
and hearts were fountains of tears for your everlasting 
welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the 
wilderness, overshadowed with the spirit of supplication." 
Are these the narrow sentiments of bigotry and superstition? 
Do you discover anything illiberal, anything uncharitable, 
anything unchristian here 1 We find then, that there was 
as much harmony among the emigrants in matters of re- 
ligious belief, and as much toleration, as there is now, so 
far as mere opinions were concerned ; although in their civil 
relations they brought their laws to bear in some degree, 
upon the conduct of men, in matters of faith and practice. 



60 

But consider their condition, their purposes and objects. 
They had gone forth from their homes to cherish sentiments, 
and secure observances within their own jurisdictions, 
without let or molestation from others. Their govern- 
ment, both civil and ecclesiastical, was intended for them- 
selves alone, and not to be forced upon unwilling minds, or 
uncomplying tempers. The grants gave them an exclusive 
title to the land which they were to occupy, with an un- 
controlled right to establish laws for its good government. 
They had come out for the express purpose of forming a 
distinct and separate organization ; a commonwealth of 
their own, to be governed just as the proprietaries ishould 
themselves see fit. 

The original grant to Plymouth only comprehended the 
country lying east of the present State of Rhode Island, 
and south of Massachusetts, which last colony was itself 
at first bounded by the narrow limits of Charles river and 
the Merrimack. Now, within these circumscribed spaces, 
those who owned the soil and had the power of governing 
it, proposed to lay the foundations of new societies, estab- 
lished for their own objects and purposes, and designed to 
carry out their own peculiar views. They did not invite 
wnthin their jurisdiction settlers of all nations, kindreds and 
tongues; but only those who thought as they thought upon 
the great subjects of subordination and religion ; and 
hence Plymouth early enacted laws prohibiting strangers, 
who had not obtained a license for that purpose from the 
magistrates, from settling within her territories. Recol- 
lect, the first emigrants and their associates in England, 
owned the very soil upon which they stood ; and having 
ample power, for its government, they were desirous of ban- 
ishing all the elements of discord from the new settlements, 
by excluding all those who were calculated to introduce 
them. If other persons, differing from the proprietaries in 



61 

their opinions and views, were desirous of emigrating to 
the western Avorld, they had merely to avoid Plymouth and 
Massachusetts, if they considered their laws or ordinances 
unkind, unjust, or severe. They could go to the north, or 
the south, and there was " ample space and verge enough" 
for all. Why then should individuals, prating of free gov- 
ernment, of religion and entire toleration- thrust themselves 
within thesQ colonial limits, if they did not mean to submit 
to the laws which governed them 1 They were not invited 
thither, nor solicited, nor called for, or even wanted. 

Was there any injustice, then, in laws, in resolutions, or 
practices, which merely sought to exclude the elements of 
schism, anarchy and insubordination, for the purpose of pre- 
serving peace, good order, sound morality, and a pure reli- 
gious faith ? They did not seek for proselytes, nor invite 
settlers of a different creed to come within their borders ; 
but such individuals came, nevertheless, without their con- 
sent, and insisted upon remaining there, not merely to 
enjoy their own opinions in modest quietude and silence, 
but to proclaim those opinions aloud, everywhere, from the 
high places, and Avith the express intent of drawing the 
original settlers from their ancient impressions. And be- 
cause those stout-hearted men, who had borne the burthen 
and heat of the day to accomplish their own peculiar pur- 
poses, raised a protest, effectual and firm, against such in- 
novations, the intruders cried out, " persecution and intol- 
erance !" Aye, but some may say, " they drove Roger 
Williams in the dead of winter into the wilderness, exposed 
to its cold and hardship, and the tender mercies of its savage 
inhabitants." 

This banishment of Mr. Williams was entirely of his own 
seeking, and the time selected was chosen by himself. This 
gentleman, who came over in the year 163C, began life with 
such a furious partisan zeal, that he refused to join in fellow- 



62 

ship with his brethren of Boston, unless they would declare 
their repentance for having communed with the church of 
England before they left that country. He was also of 
opinion, that there should be no punishment for a breach 
of the Sabbath, or indeed for any violations of the precepts 
of the first table of the law, unless they disturbed the pub- 
lic peace. That oaths ought not to be tendered to unrepent- 
ant men ; that thanks should not be given after the sacra- 
ment, nor after meat, and that a christian should not pray 
with an unregenerate person, even though wife or child ! 
He also insisted, that the title of the Massachusetts Colony 
to their lands was not good ; and he maintained these opin- 
ions in the most open and public manner ; even refusing 
to commune with the members of his own church, unless 
they would separate themselves from the polluted churches 
of New England. These opinions were deemed to be not 
only erroneous, but dangerous ; and hence he was warned 
that he must not assert them in public, if he expected 
to remain within the colony. But as he set the constituted 
authorities at defiance, sentence of banishment was passed 
upon him, in October, 1635 ; with a permission, how- 
ever, to remain until spring, provided he would restrain 
himself from the propensity to make proselytes, and pro- 
claim his opinions to the people. It being soon ascertained, 
however, that disregaiding these injunctions, he was hold- 
ing meetings at his own house, and preaching upon the 
very points for which he was censured, an order was 
given for his prrest ; not for the purpose of putting him in 
prison, or thrusting him out among savages, but for the 
purpose of sending him back to England. Hearing of this 
order, he determined to evade it, and so passed over from 
Massachusettes to the west part of the Plymouth jurisdiction, 
where he remained for some time among the Indians. His 
place of retreat being known, "that ever honored Governor 



63 

Winthrop," as Williams himself styles him, privately 
wrote him to " steer his course to the Narragansett Bay, 
as being- free from English claims or patents." "I took 
his prudent motion," says he, " as a voice from God !" 
Once established within his own jurisdiction, he re- 
mained there without interference or molestation on the 
part of the colonies of Plymouth or Massachusetts, and in 
perfect friendship with both. What is there to complain 
of in all this 1 What was there of hardship or injustice in 
the case ? He had come to the colonies without invitation, 
and remained there against their wishes. They did not 
desire to stifle his opinions, for one of their statutes express- 
ly says, that " no creature is Lord, or has power over the 
faith and consciences of men, nor may restrain them to be- 
lieve or profess against their consciences ; nor deprive them 
of their lawful liberty in a quiet and orderly way to propose 
their scruples." But they did desire to suppress the open 
and public proclamation of opinions, hurtful to their pro- 
perty, and schismatical in their effects. Instead of har- 
mony in an infant and feeble settlement, under his preach- 
ing there would be inflamed zeal, heated controversy, 
doubtful faith, disturbed principles, and unsettled belief; 
for Williams himself afterwards became strenuous against 
the Quakers, holding public disputes with some of their 
most eminent teachers. At later periods of his life, he 
lived in open neglect of many of the ordinances for which 
he had once zealously contended. Instead of separating 
himself from the anti-christian churches, against which he 
had been so loud, he was ready to preach and pray for 
all sects, and became entirely doubtful as to what church 
he should unite himself with. Why should Mr. Williams 
raise up commotion, by attacking the patent of Massachu- 
setts '? Why should he, amongst a people who could not 
by possibility be brought to his way of thinking, deny that 



64 

the commandments of the first table of the law might 
be enforced by the secular power 1 Do any christian peo- 
ple ; does any State ; does even Rhode Island herself pre- 
tend to maintain good order upon the Sabbath day, without 
any law for its proper observance ? One of the moving 
causes of emigration from Holland was the profanation of 
the Sabbath, and the impossibility of correcting the evil 
there ; the Dutch ministers themselves acknowledging the 
difficulty of withdrawing the people from their sports and 
ordinary occupations on that day. Should they then, at 
once throw off observances which were deemed fundamen- 
tal and sacred ? Should they admit themselves to be wrong 
on this vital point, which has never yet been abandoned by 
their descendants, and say that conscience made a law for 
itself, sufficient in all these matters of outward observance? 
Are the consciences of all men alike 1 and guided by its 
dictates alone, can there be uniformity af action and a de- 
cent preservation of order and propriety 7 The thing is im- 
possible. 

Even under Mr. Williams, matters seem not to have been 
mended much, or very harmonious in their operation : for 
we find that in 1638, the free principles which he wished 
to establish in Massachusetts did not work particularly 
well in Rhode Island. " At Providence," says Governor 
Winthrop, " the devil was not idle, for whereas, at their 
first coming thither, Mr. "Williams, and the rest, did make 
an order that no man should be molested for his con- 
science ; now men's wives, and children, and servants, 
claimed liberty to go to all religious meetings, though 
never so often or private, upon week days ; and because one 
Verin refused to let his Avife go to Mr. Williams so oft as 
she was called for, they required to have him censured ; and 
some were of opinion that if Verin would not suffer his wife 
to have her liberty, the church should dsipose of her to 



65 

some other man, who would use her better. In conclu- 
sion ; when they would have censured Verin, another told 
them it was against their own order ; for Verin did what 
he did out of conscience, and their order was, that no man 
should be disturbed for conscience." 

But they whipped the Anabaptists and persecuted the Qua- 
kers, you say 1 They moderately punished one individual 
of the former Sect, it is true, in the year 1644 : "Not," says 
Mr. Winthrop, " for his opinions, but for his evil behavior, 
both at home and in court ; he being a scandalous person, 
of loose habits, and much given to lying and idleness." 
And as for the Quakers, what were they in the days of our 
fathers ? Were they the decent, orderly, quiet and modest 
people, which we see now, every where obedient to the 
laws, thrifty, industrious, benevolent and gentle? Would 
John Winthrop, and William Bradford, and Francis Hig- 
ginson lay their hands, think ye, upon the excellent per- 
sons who at present occupy New Bedford, setting an ex- 
ample of subordination, virtue and propriety, to all 
the world 1 No, no. The Quakers of the seventeenth 
century were no more like the gentle Friends of the nine- 
teenth, than 'the latter are like the Mormons. The former 
were ranters and fanatics, disturbers of public peace and 
decency, entering the churches during the time of service, 
m the most shameless manner, and insulting the ministers 
there, in the administration of their sacred office. They 
invaded public houses, uttering their wild exhortations, and 
foaming forth their mad opinions, like persons possessed ; 
disturbing, also, the relations of private life, and meddling, 
everywhere, with matters beyond the pale of propriety, or 
even common modesty. 

One Eccles, a Quaker tailor, who wrote a narrative of 
his persecutions, as he termed them, in 1659, declares that 
he felt bound to go to the steeple-house in Aldermanbury 

5 



66 

(as he called the church) on Sunday, "and take with 
him something to work upon, and do it in the pulpit, at 
their singing time ; and he carried with him a pocket to 
sew." Making his way with proverbial slyness into the 
pulpit, he sat himself, he says, " upon the cushion with his 
feet upon the seat where the priest, when he has told out 
his lies, doth sit," and pulling out his pocket, went to 
work. Was it not a marvellous persecution, that the peo- 
ple thus disturbed, should have taken this insane zealot 
before a magistrate for punishment 1 

George Fox himself, entered " a steeple-house," and cried 
out to the minister; in the time of divine service, " come 
down, thou deceiver ;" and on another occasion, approach- 
ing Lichfield, he pulled off his shoes and walked barefoot 
through the place, crying out " woe to the bloody city." 
But even men like these were mild and decent, in compari- 
son with others of their sect, who were carried away by 
the wildest impulses of phrenzy and fanaticism, putting the 
followers of Mathias even to the blush ; and against such 
public disturbers as these, the colony laws were directed. 

These laws were at first mild and gentle, and in 1659, Ply- 
iuouth, by statute, made a proposition to the Quakers, that 
if they would depart out of their jurisdiction within six 
months, no fines should be exacted of them ; promising 
that such of them as were poor should be supplied out 
of the public treasury. And to show the desire they had 
of preserving their own institutions merely, within their 
own jurisdiction, banishment from the Province, was in 
almost all cases, the first penalty prescribed for offences of 
this character. As measures of a mild nature were of no 
effect, the laws became more stringent, and it was then 
enacted, that if "ranters, Quakers, and other such vaga- 
bonds," should come within any town, they might be 
seized and whipped with a rod, not exceeding fifteen stripes. 



67 

and a pass given them to depart out of the government. 
Associate this law with the image of the gentle Friend of 
our day, with his modest coat and quiet manners, and it 
becomes absurd. But associate it with Mathias, wandering 
about the streets of New York, uttering his disgusting 
blasphemies to curious crowds and deceived proselytes, and 
I think you would certainly bestow upon him at least fifteen 
stripes with a rod before you gave him a pass to depart from 
the government. But if our ancestors were too severe in 
their measures for the suppression of " ranters, and such 
like vagabonds," they were not a whit more severe than 
the English themselves ; for we find that one James Naylor, 
a convert of George Fox, the great founder of the sect, was 
condemned to death for his extravagancies by the House 
of Commons, in 1656. Even the mild and excellent William 
Penn himself could hardly tolerate them ; saying that they 
were troublesome to the better sort, and furnished an occa- 
sion for tlie looser to blaspheme. 

In considering the character and conduct of those who 
lived and conducted the affairs of government, with the ad- 
ministration of its laws, two centuries ago, we should view 
them, not with eyes which have seen all the changes of 
thoughts, and all the improvements which that long period 
has produced, but they should be judged by the sentiments 
which prevailed in their time, and the lights by which they 
themselves were then guided. It is an easy thing now to 
ridicule the laws of Massachusetts concerning witchcraft, and 
hurl anathemas against the pious men who carried them into 
effect. But what was the state of public opinion throughout 
the wiwle christian world upon this subject at that time ? 
Was New England the only spot where laws of this nature 
were enacted 1 Had old England no statutes upon the 
subject? or if they remained upon the record, had they, 
by disuse become obsolete and forgotten ? 

5* 



68 

"To deny," says Blackstone, in his commentaries, written 
more than seventy years after all trials for this crime in 
New England had ceased ; " to deny the possibility, nay, 
actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly 
to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages 
both of the Old and New Testament ; and the thing itself is 
a truth to which every nation in the world, hath in its turn 
borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, 
or by prohibitory laws. The civil law punishes with 
death, not only the sorcerers themselves, but also those who 
consult them, imitating in the former the express law 
of God, ' thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' And our 
laws, both before and since the conquest, have been equally 
penal, ranking this crime in the same class with heresy, and 
condemning both to the flames." 

Laws of the severest kind against this supposed offence, 
were passed in England, during the reign of Henry the 
eighth ; repeated and extended during that of James the 
first ; and continued on their statute books down to the year 
1736, when, in the ninth year of George the second's reign 
it was enacted, that prosecutions should not, from that time 
forward, be carried on against any person for conjuration, 
witchcraft, enchantment, or sorcery ; leaving however, up- 
on the face of the law itself, an implied belief in their 
existence. 

Who was Sir Matthew HaJe, and when did he live ? He 
was the Chief Justice of the King's Bench at one period of 
his life, and died in the year 1676, one of the most learned, 
just, and upright of all the magistrates that ever presided 
in an English court. And did he never try witches ? Why, 
under his administration, and those of other learned and 
high minded judges of that time, more persons were put to 
death for this crime of witchcraft, in a single county of Eng- 
land, in a brief space, than ever suffered in all the 



69 

States of New England, from the time of their settlement 
to the day when the delusion passed away, and, as I trust, 
for ever from the annals of mankind. No execution for 
conjuration or sorcery ever took place in New England, I 
believe, after the year 1693 ; but in old England, death con- 
tinued to be inflicted for the same offences as late as 1722 ; 
showing conclusively that the crime had not its " local 
habitation and name " in Massachusetts alone. 

But how much have we improved, upon the score of 
superstition, even in these enlightened times 1 In what days 
of New England history can you find anything so monstrous 
and revolting as the Mormon super^tion, crime or folly, 
which is now before your eyes 1 When did Jemima Wilk- 
inson flourish ? And where did a reverend fanatic speak to 
deluded crowds in unknown tongues ? No ! credulity and 
superstition are not confined to particular periods or places ; 
but are of all times, and in every part of the world ; and 
happy are they who escape its influence. 

In paying a tribute to the merits of our dead ancestors, 
let not their modesty and freedom from ambition be forgot- 
ten. To discharge their duty before God and man was their 
only aspiration. Power and place offered no temptations 
to their chastened minds. No matter in what condition 
man, under ordinary circumstances may be placed, whether 
as the Inca of Peru, surrounded by ingots of gold and pyra- 
mids of silver, or as the poverty-stricken sachem of a north- 
ern tribe, without wealth, or comfort, or outward signs of 
magnificence; power is nevertheless the strongest temptation 
to ambitious souls. In the desire for its possession, all other 
earthly regards are absorbed ; fraud, violence, and cor- 
ruption, are invoked for its acquirement ; the endearments 
of home, the consciousness of right, the obligations of vir- 
tue, and the sanctions of religion are all forgotten, while 
the human energies are concentrated into one fierce and in- 



70 

exting"uishable motive. For it, man spurns the rights of 
his fellow man ; disregards the obligations of duty ; despises 
present retribution, and tempts that which is to come. 

In what strong contrast with all that we see exhibited, 
day by day, upon the busy theatre of human affairs at this 
time, does the conduct of the Pilgrims appear'? Simple, 
unambitious, conscientious, and devoted ; considering pow- 
er as a burden which all were bound to endure, they assum- 
ed its cares without coveting its honors. There was no 
strife among them as to which should be greatest. Far from 
it. William Bradford having been repeatedly elected 
Governor, " got off "^n one occasion, " by importunity." 
" If this appointment," said he, " was an honor or benefit, 
others beside himself should partake of it ; if it were a bur- 
den, others beside himself should help to bear it." Nor 
was this feeling peculiar to him, for we find that in the year 
1632, it was solemnly enacted at Plymouth, " that if then, 
or thereafter," any were elected to the office of Governor, 
and would not stand to the election, nor hold and execute 
the office for his year, that then, he be amerced in twenty 
pounds sterling, fine. And if any were elected to the 
office of Counsel, and refused to hold the place, that he be 
amerced in ten pounds, sterling." There is some reason to 
suspect, however much we may have adhered to the cus- 
toms of our Pilgrim ancestors, that in this particular, we are 
somewhat degenerated. 

We have thus seen who the first planters of New Eng- 
land were, and the causes which led to the great enterprise 
of establishing colonies upon our north- Atlantic shores. We 
have seen that they were men imbued with morals, sound 
and practical, though severe; of principles high-minded 
and pure, though firm and unyielding ; of a religious faith 
and temperament, heated perhaps, by zeal to observances 
over-strict and formal : yet kind, tolerant and forgiving. 



71 

We have seen them everywhere carrying out the purposes 
and fulfilling the designs for which they emigrated. The 
darkness of the forest gave way before the vigorous strokes 
of the woodman ; the hum of the mill was mingled with 
the dash of the waterfall ; the noise of the hammer was 
heard in the solitude of the desert, and the lowing of herds 
penetrated to the abodes of the wolf and the panther ; the 
hill-side reflected back the gleam of the ploughshare, and 
the plains waved with the golden plumage of the harvest ; 
the wild incantations of the savage gave place to psalms of 
thanksgiving and the song of praise ; while civilization 
advanced everywhere over the land, sounding its glad voice, 
and pouring out its blessings. 

The progress of those little bands, from small beginnings 
to considerable commimities ; from these communities to 
separate and independent States ; and from such States, to 
a harmonius union of all their descendants, under one com- 
mon government, wisely constructed, powerfully main- 
tained, and eminently respectable ; may be easily traced, 
when the sources of the mighty current, flowing so steadily 
on, are once well known. 

The principles inculcated by our fathers, the education 
they bestowed upon their children, and the habits of pa- 
tience, long-sufl^ering, and perseverance in which they 
were trained, could not fail to have an influence, deep and 
abiding, upon their characters. Standing by their chartered 
rights on all occasions, when attacked, conscious that they 
were entitled to the immunities and privileges for which they 
had toiled so long, and suffered so much, the Pilgrims and 
their descendants were not likely to submit with tameness 
to wrongs and oppressions, come from what source they 
might. 

The contests in which they were involved with the na- 
tives, after the termination of Philip's war, the blood which 



72 

they poured from their veins, and the desolations which 
came upon their borders, had been occasioned, for the most 
part, by controversies between the mother-country and her 
European neighbors, in which the colonies were compelled 
to take part. But they "remembered that they were Eng- 
lishmen," and bore their portion of the burthens of war 
with patience and courage, murmuring at none of these 
things; for wherever the British flag waived on this conti- 
nent, the sons of New England could be found marshalled 
under it, and standing side by side with their kinsmen. 

But their sympathies were always on the part of liberty, 
jind from the beginning, they were essentially republican. 
H^nce, though not engaged in the conflict between the king 
and his parliaments, their hearts were always with the peo- 
ple. They rejoiced in their success, they mourned over 
their misfortunes ; nor was it a day of fasting and prayer in 
the colonies, when the news came that the independent 
churches had established for themselves equality of rights, 
in the land where they were originally formed. 

" Full little did I think," exclaimed that stout old Puri- 
tan, Governor Bradford, " full little did I think that the 
downfall of the bishops, with their courts, their canons, and 
ceremonies, had been so near when I first began this writ- 
ing, in 1630 ; or that I should have lived to have seen or 
heard the same. And do ye now see the fruits of your labors, 
ye little band amongst the rest, the least amongst the thou- 
sands of Israel? But who hath done it ? EvenHe,whositteth 
upon the white horse : who is called faithful and true, and 
judgeth and fighteth righteously. It is He that treadeth the 
wine press, and hath upon his garment and upon his thigh 
a name written, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords !" 

After that great revolution, which was the prelude mere- 
ly, to the still greater one, which finall_y expelled the Stu- 
arts from the British throne, the people of New England 



73 

steadily adhered to their early principles, and hence they 
furnished a refuge to such of King Charles' judges as es- 
caped to their country, desolate and forlorn. They did not 
look upon ihem as regicides, who had murdered their sove- 
reign, but in the language of Bradshaw-s epitaph, as a part 
of " that band of heroes and patriots, who had fairly and 
openly adjudged Charles Stuart, tyrant of England, to a 
public and exemplary death : thereby presenting to the 
amazed world, and transmitting down, through applauding 
ages the most glorious example of unshaken virtue, love of 
freedom and impartial justice, ever exhibited on the blood- 
stained theatre of human action !'' 

These principles, and these sentiments, they maintained, 
and in Boston boldly avowed and acted upon, even before 
tidings of the expulsion of James from his throne had 
reached their glad and expecting ears. As good citizens, 
as obedient subjects, they remained diu-ing the reigns of his 
daughters, and the first two of their successors from Han- 
over; cherishing their free institutions, and, what was 
more, maintaining their independent sentiments with the 
unconquerable resolution of intelligent minds. 

How unwise then in the mother country ; how dangerous 
to wound the feelings of attachment which bound the de- 
scendants of the Pilgrims to the early home of their fathers. 
How unjust to attempt to restrain their energies, circum- 
scribe their powers, and subdue their spirit. Were men 
like these ever intended to be mere " hewers of wood and 
drawers of water,'* for taskmasters on the other side of the 
Atlantic ? Were the sons of the Pilgrims like the children 
of Issachar, '• a strong ass couching down between two 
burdens V' Were they likely to " see that rest was good, 
and the land pleasant,*' and so " bow their shoulders to 
bear, and become servants unto tribute ?'* No, no. Eng- 
land should have remembered that ** Judah was a lion's 



74 

whelp, and that his hand would be in the neck of his ene- 
mies." 

A writer, to me unknown, who composed a preface to an 
edition of Hubbard's wars, printed in Boston, shortly before 
the battle of Bunker's Hill, speaking of his ancestors, ob- 
serves, that however they may have been misrepresented, 
they were men of whom the world was not worthy. 
'* According- to the usual course of things," says he, '* in 
this depraved and mutable state, their descendants, at this 
day, as might be expected, have, in a measure, departed 
from that simplicity of manners by which their renowned 
ancestors were distinguished. We, of this province, have 
been called upon, from an early period, to defend our lives 
and property against more distant savages. Our trust has 
been in our fathers' God, and hitherto, he hath delivered 
us. Our frontier settlements are exposed to savage inva- 
sion ; and, though we trust not in our own bow, we are all 
armed and prepared for a defensive war !" 

Who were the savages hinted at here, as nearer than 
those more distant ones, who had formerly assailed the 
frontier settlements 1 Against whom did the descendants 
of the Pilgrims then stand, all armed and prepared for a 
defensive war ? Could not those, who controlled the des- 
tinies of Britain, hear the mutterings of the distant thunder, 
in these audible breathings-out of a suppressed, but concen- 
trated and indomitable spirit 1 Could nothing but the fierce 
lightning of the battle, and the peltings of the pitiless storm 
of war arouse them to the recollection, that the fathers of 
these men were Englishmen, who came over the great 
ocean, and that their children would perish in this wilder- 
ness, rather than bear anything here, which would not be 
borne at home ? 

The same spirit which had planted the colonies, sustain- 
ed and supported them through the whole Revolutionary 



75 

struggle ; so desolating, so unequal, so fierce, and unrelent- 
ing. The history of that event is so remarkable, when care- 
fully examined, as to excite astonishment, if not incredu- 
lity ; and if an overruling Providence ever did interpose 
directly in the affairs of men, surely, its cloud by day, and 
pillar of fire by night, may be seen and traced through all 
the long and wearisome years of that eventful contest. 

Severed then, and forever, were the silver cords, which 
bound distant, but affectionate colonies to their parent 
country. The golden bowl had been broken at the foun- 
tain. With ruthless violence it had been dashed down, and 
its fragments in after times, were never to be gathered up 
by the parent hand. But all the fruits of that vine which 
God had planted in the wilderness, were to remain to the 
descendants of those who had nurtured and nourished it, 
even with their tears and with their blood. Its branches 
were destined to shoot forth and spread out, and extend and 
blossom in the unknown and unthought-of depths of that 
vast continent, where its roots had struck so firmly and so 
deep. 

Equal rights and equal privileges for all men, were then 
and there secured ; and as I trust, made safe and enduring 
for ever. Freedom of thought, freedom of action under 
proper restraints, the inestimable gift of self-government, 
were each and all of them bestowed upon us by our fathers, 
at the close of that great drama, in which they, and the 
principal nations of Europe were finally actors. They es- 
tablished institutions, which we are bound by all the sacred 
obligations of filial affection, of parental reverence, and 
common gratitude, to preserve and maintain, and hand 
down to those who may come after us. And by all these 
great and hallowed recollections, we will maintain and 
preserve and hand them down, that no reproach may come 
upon us or our generation. That education we have received, 



76 

we will transmit ; that language taught to ns, we will teach 
to others ; those principles in which we have been wrapped 
as with a mantle, we will bequeath to posterity, as the 
last, best gift, which one generation can bestow upon 
another. 

The seeds sown by the Mayflower, shall be borne and 
wafted on the gentle winds of heaven, to every part of this 
vast continent, to spring up thirty, sixty, and an hundred 
fold, in the blossoms of that glorious and never-dying plant. 

The dove which was sent out from the Ark, was to ex- 
plore the face of the waters, to see where rest could be 
found for the sole of her foot. The dove which went forth 
from the Mayflower, carried in her beak a leaf of the 
olive which was to be planted, and take root, and grow and 
flourish, after the great waters of toil, and suffering, and 
trial, and Revolution, should have subsided. 

The land is visible to us on every side, fertile and plea- 
sant as the garden of the Lord. It was given to us as an 
inheritance ; as an inheritance we will preserve it. Our 
tears did not water it ; our blood did not nourish it ; our 
toil did not smooth down its surface ; but we are bound to 
it by the blood, and the tears, and the toil of our fathers ; 
and by all these sacred obligations we will guard it. 

The great orator of our time, and of his race, in his elo- 
quent and profoundly philosophical discourse, delivered at 
Plymouth in the year 1820, speaking of his own native and 
beloved New England, expresses himself in these words: 

" Instead of being confined to its former limits, her popu- 
lation has rolled backward and filled up the spaces included 
within her actual local boundaries. Not this only, but it 
has overflowed those boundaries and the waves of emigra- 
tion have pressed farther and farther towards the West. 
The Alleghany has not checked it, the banks of the Ohio 
have been covered with it. Two thousand miles westward 



77 

from the rock where their fathers landed, may now be found 
the sons of the Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields, rearing 
towns and villages, and cherishing the patrimonial bless- 
ings of wise institutions, cf liberty and religion." " It may 
be safely asserted that there are now more than a million 
of people, descendants of New England ancestry, living 
free and happy in regions which, hardly sixty years ago, 
were tracts of unpenetrated forest. Nor do rivers, or moun- 
tains, or seas, resist the progress of industry and enterprise ; 
and ere long the sons of the Pilgrims will be upon the shores 
of the Pacific." 

'J'his prophecy, made just twenty-seven years ago, has 
become history within that brief space of time. The mil- 
lion of the descendants of New England parentage here re- 
ferred to, may, in all probability, be found in Ohio alone. 
The boundaries of the great rivers have been overleaped. 
'I'he sterile plains, and still more sterile hills, beyond the 
Mississippi, have been traversed. The barrier of tne Alle- 
ghanies has presented no resistance ; the Rocky Mountains 
themselves have been scaled ; the stormy Cape has been 
doubled ; and now the sons of the Pilgrims stand upon the 
shores of the Pacific. They stand there with no eye turned 
towards the rising sun, except for the cheering warmth of 
his kindred rays. They stand there with no fainting reso- 
lution, no faltering thought of return. As their march was 
westward, so, with an intrepid front, they follow the sun 
in his flight, and look out upon the broad Pacific to see in 
what distant land he hides his fading beams. That piercing 
gazewillnever cease until the mystery hasbeensolved. The 
isles of the sea will be measured ; the spherical form of the 
globe itself be proved by American exploration ; and the 
Anglo Saxons of this continent, steadily pursuing the on- 
ward progress of their career, will put a girdle around the 
earth, and yet come back to the Rock of Plymouth, from 
whence they originally set forth. 



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